Claudio Verna
16 May - 20 Jul 2013
CLAUDIO VERNA
I colori agili
curated by Davide Ferri
16 May - 20 July 2013
The culmination of a year’s work of analysis, discussion and study, Monitor is pleased to announce the opening of its forthcoming solo show, curated by Davide Ferri and devoted to the work of Claudio Verna (Guardiagrele, 1937). Monitor is the first private gallery ever to exhibit a body of works that encompasses the full length of his opus, from the rare, early canvases of the late 1960s (Omaggio a Licini, 1966-67) to his masterly recent painting production (Andante Appassionato, 2012), passing through his experimentations of the early 1980s (Collage n.5), with the aim of offering a new and transverse reading of the work of one who still ranks among the most interesting figures on the contemporary art scene.
Davide Ferri describes the show at Monitor as “neither an anthology or a ‘best of’... It is instead an attempt to shatter the cliché of Verna the champion of Analytical Painting, of ‘Pittura Pittura’, of Sixties/Eighties/Nineties Verna, of a Verna that can be slotted nicely into certain periods, confined by categories or the conceptual asperities of the 1960s”.
For many years Verna has in fact been best known for his large-scale experimentations carried out in the late-Sixties. Born in the Abbruzzi region of Central Italy, this was admittedly a crucial period for Verna, whose entire career has played out in Rome. Some of his greatest masterpieces from this time could alone earn him a prominent ranking in the history of Italian twentieth century art. The goal of this show is therefore to set Verna’s reputation free from this chronological confine and bring him more into line with the eloquent description reserved for him by Maurizio Fagiolo dall’Arco in one of his texts: “...the first moment of research (which can equally be the last because each of these proposals stands for Verna’s entire artistic itinerary) is forever unpredictable. Firstly, the painter declares that he does not know the end of his research, that he has yet to capture the impalpable essence of The Painting. He knows that he does not know... À la recherche then (with all the burden of memory that such an operation entails). A quest for colour, for space, for the history of painting, for alternative ends and maybe even for alternative means – or simply not to know how to start from the beginning. ‘A picture is a picture’ – perhaps, like Gertrude and her ‘a rose is a rose is a rose’, this is a good beginning”. (Claudio Verna, Giancarlo Politi Editore, 1979).
One of the themes of this show is therefore the concept of the painting as a pictorial object, which offers scope for unusual and interesting combinations. Davide Ferri in fact explains that there will be “six paintings in total, two or three completed many years ago, which have been included in the selection precisely because they have assonances with the other more recent works. Some of the paintings included in the show are very recent, others less known but crucial in their role as ‘transition’ or ‘passage’ pieces, and for these very qualities defy classification. In Pittura, completed in 1976, Verna has altered the relation between project and experience, particularly in the brushstroke as a presence in the work – free, ‘felt’ and for the first time unfettered to drawing or geometry. Omaggio a Licini, from 1966-67, combines a Frank Stella style minimalism with the volatility and weightlessness of a Licini figure. Other works featured in the show are less well known on account of their experimental, exceptional nature. These include two collages, one of which combines recycled sections of the adhesive tape the artist has used to trace the contours and lines in his larger paintings, as well as some drawings he made last year in Rapicciano, in Umbria, where he spends his summers. So far the artist has always exhibited his paintings and crayons separately.
The apparently contrasting nature of this exhibition could, to quote Verna himself, produce a ‘code’ or just some kind of unexpected, elegant de-formalization”. (Extract from Claudio Verna, I colori agili, by Davide Ferri, Rome 2013).
In May 2013 Claudio Verna joined the Monitor exhibition programme. Selected Shows: 2011; Festa antologica, Fondazione Mudima, Milan; 2007; Works between 1967 – 2007, Museo Nazionale d’Abruzzo, Castello Cinquecentesco, L’Aquila; 1989 Frankfurter Westend Galerie, Frankfurt; 1980 Lo Spazio Gallery, Naples; XXXIX Venice Biennale, Venice; 1979 Galleria del Milione, Milan.
I colori agili
curated by Davide Ferri
16 May - 20 July 2013
The culmination of a year’s work of analysis, discussion and study, Monitor is pleased to announce the opening of its forthcoming solo show, curated by Davide Ferri and devoted to the work of Claudio Verna (Guardiagrele, 1937). Monitor is the first private gallery ever to exhibit a body of works that encompasses the full length of his opus, from the rare, early canvases of the late 1960s (Omaggio a Licini, 1966-67) to his masterly recent painting production (Andante Appassionato, 2012), passing through his experimentations of the early 1980s (Collage n.5), with the aim of offering a new and transverse reading of the work of one who still ranks among the most interesting figures on the contemporary art scene.
Davide Ferri describes the show at Monitor as “neither an anthology or a ‘best of’... It is instead an attempt to shatter the cliché of Verna the champion of Analytical Painting, of ‘Pittura Pittura’, of Sixties/Eighties/Nineties Verna, of a Verna that can be slotted nicely into certain periods, confined by categories or the conceptual asperities of the 1960s”.
For many years Verna has in fact been best known for his large-scale experimentations carried out in the late-Sixties. Born in the Abbruzzi region of Central Italy, this was admittedly a crucial period for Verna, whose entire career has played out in Rome. Some of his greatest masterpieces from this time could alone earn him a prominent ranking in the history of Italian twentieth century art. The goal of this show is therefore to set Verna’s reputation free from this chronological confine and bring him more into line with the eloquent description reserved for him by Maurizio Fagiolo dall’Arco in one of his texts: “...the first moment of research (which can equally be the last because each of these proposals stands for Verna’s entire artistic itinerary) is forever unpredictable. Firstly, the painter declares that he does not know the end of his research, that he has yet to capture the impalpable essence of The Painting. He knows that he does not know... À la recherche then (with all the burden of memory that such an operation entails). A quest for colour, for space, for the history of painting, for alternative ends and maybe even for alternative means – or simply not to know how to start from the beginning. ‘A picture is a picture’ – perhaps, like Gertrude and her ‘a rose is a rose is a rose’, this is a good beginning”. (Claudio Verna, Giancarlo Politi Editore, 1979).
One of the themes of this show is therefore the concept of the painting as a pictorial object, which offers scope for unusual and interesting combinations. Davide Ferri in fact explains that there will be “six paintings in total, two or three completed many years ago, which have been included in the selection precisely because they have assonances with the other more recent works. Some of the paintings included in the show are very recent, others less known but crucial in their role as ‘transition’ or ‘passage’ pieces, and for these very qualities defy classification. In Pittura, completed in 1976, Verna has altered the relation between project and experience, particularly in the brushstroke as a presence in the work – free, ‘felt’ and for the first time unfettered to drawing or geometry. Omaggio a Licini, from 1966-67, combines a Frank Stella style minimalism with the volatility and weightlessness of a Licini figure. Other works featured in the show are less well known on account of their experimental, exceptional nature. These include two collages, one of which combines recycled sections of the adhesive tape the artist has used to trace the contours and lines in his larger paintings, as well as some drawings he made last year in Rapicciano, in Umbria, where he spends his summers. So far the artist has always exhibited his paintings and crayons separately.
The apparently contrasting nature of this exhibition could, to quote Verna himself, produce a ‘code’ or just some kind of unexpected, elegant de-formalization”. (Extract from Claudio Verna, I colori agili, by Davide Ferri, Rome 2013).
In May 2013 Claudio Verna joined the Monitor exhibition programme. Selected Shows: 2011; Festa antologica, Fondazione Mudima, Milan; 2007; Works between 1967 – 2007, Museo Nazionale d’Abruzzo, Castello Cinquecentesco, L’Aquila; 1989 Frankfurter Westend Galerie, Frankfurt; 1980 Lo Spazio Gallery, Naples; XXXIX Venice Biennale, Venice; 1979 Galleria del Milione, Milan.