Claudio Olivieri. The Appearance of Painting

Glenda Cinquegrana Art Consulting is glad to present the personal show dedicated to Italian painter Claudio Olivieri deceased in 2019. The show goes by the title The Appearance of Painting and was realized in collaboration with Archivio Claudio Olivieri,Milano. Through a significant core of works from the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties it aims to reveal the refined research of the master who was born in Rome but chose Milan as his abode.
Accompanied by an interview with art critic Giorgio Bonomi realized by Arianna Baldoni, curator of the artist’s archive, the title of the show, The Appearance of Painting, hints to a possible repositioning of the artist well beyond the role of protagonist of Analytical Painting. According to the two critics, Olivieri’s pictorial form has a very particular visual vocation that can be understood through the concept of appearance, meaning painting as an act of manifestation. Within an already strong conceptual concentration, Olivieri’s abstraction appears as a smart and poised balance of opposites, an oxymoron of visible and invisible, a constant trade-off between concealing and revealing, between all and nothing. The personality of the artist, who loved to write aphorisms heaped with antinomies, emerges clearly in his paintings, which take an ambiguous stance between depth and surface, between passion and rational clarity. After all, as Vittorio Fagone said in 1969, duration in Olivieri’s work acquires a very specific dimension: the sum of the distances inside the pictorial field is not considered as a sequence of absences, but as he specification of relations1.  
Within an itinerary, which is only partially chronological, the show presents some original and museum quality works from the Seventies juxtaposed with works from the Eighties and Nineties in order to outline an evolutionary trait in Olivieri’s painting, which from sombre and dramatically assertive, acquires a greater sensuality in the shapes, together with a strict tempo.  
Finally, the show is completed by a selection of hardly ever published works on large-format paper. The latter witness Olivieri’s work practice ranging from large canvases to a less challenging medium such as paper. Olivieri seems capable of expressing himself through a type of painting, which by subtracting weight, gains more subtlety and rarefaction, and even spontaneous gestural expressiveness.

Biography

Claudio Olivieri (Rome 1934 - Milan 2019). Selected solo exhibitions: Claudio Olivieri. Di carte e oltre... Pensare il colore prima della pittura, Villa Brandolini d’Adda, Pieve di Soligo, Treviso, IT, 2023; Claudio Olivieri. Infinito Visibile, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, IT, 2021; Luce come sostanza, Rocca Roveresca, Senigallia, Ancona, IT; Olivieri. Preludio, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA, 2014; Claudio Olivieri. Premesse poetiche per un viaggio, Serrone della Villa Reale, Monza, IT, 2007; Frankfürter Westend Galerie, Frankfürt am Main, DEU, 2000; Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Ferrara, IT, 1994; PAC, Milan, IT, 1982; Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, IT, 1981; Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, DEU, 1974; Galleria Il Capricorno, Venice, IT, 1977; Salone Annunciata, Milan, IT, 1966; Galleria del Milione, Milan, IT, 1969;  Selected collective exhibitions: La Soglia della Pittura, Glenda Cinquegrana Art Consulting, Milan, IT, 2023; Pittura Spazio Scultura, GAM, Turin, IT, 2019; In Astratto-Abstraction in Italy, Estorick Collection, London, UK; Pensare Pittura, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Villa Croce, Genoa, IT; Milano Gallerie, Triennale di Milan, IT, 2009; XIII Quadriennale, Rome, IT, 1999; XXXII Biennale di Milano, Milan, IT, 1994; XLIV Biennale internazionale d’Arte, Venice, IT, 1990; Dieci anni di acquisizioni delle Civiche Raccolte d’Arte, PAC (Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea), Milan, IT, 1989; Nuove acquisizioni della Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Bologna; Italienischen Zeichnungen, Stadtische Galerie, Frankfürt am Main, DEU; Kunstmuseum, Zürich, CH, 1988; XLII Biennale internazionale d’Arte, Venice, IT; Italienischen Kunst, Frankfürter Kunstverein, Frankfürt am Main, DEU; Kunstverein, Hannover; Bregenzer Kunstverein, Bregenz, DEU; XI Quadriennale d’Arte, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, IT, 1986; Linee della ricerca artistica in Italia 1960-1980, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, IT, 1981; XXXIX Biennale internazionale d’Arte, Venice, IT, 1980; Bilder ohne Bilder, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, DEU, 1978; Documenta, Kassel, DEU, 1977; X Quadriennale d’Arte, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, IT, 1973; XXXIII Biennale Internazionale d’Arte, Venice, IT, 1966.
 
Giorgio Bonomi was born in Rome in 1946, lives in Perugia. After a period of studies and writings on political philosophy, including the book Party and revolution in Gramsci, ed. Feltrinelli 1973, collaboration with il Manifesto, he dedicated himself to contemporary art as a critic, curator of exhibitions, essayist and founding and directing the magazine, Titolo. He directed the Exhibition Center of the Rocca Paolina in Perugia from 1994 to 1999. He was the Director of the Zappettini Foundation (Chiavari and Milan) which deals with analytical painting. He has curated more than three hundred exhibitions in Italy and abroad and published numerous essays.

Arianna Baldoni born in Lucca, 1979. She is an art critic, curator and journalist. She teaches History of Contemporary Art and History of Cinema and Video at the Aldo Galli Academy of Fine Arts - IED Como and History of Modern Art at NABA Academy in Milan. She writes for several specialized magazines, including Arte (Cairo Editore). She is the curator of Claudio Olivieri Archive in Milan and the catalogue raisonné of Franca Ghitti. She has been Project Coordinator for the Iran Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale and coordinated the activities of the Culture Commission of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. She furthermore curated and coordinated several exhibitions in Italy and abroad, along with monographic volumes and catalogues raisonnés. She held lectures, conferences, talks and she has published essays, critical texts and interviews for various publishers, including Silvana Editoriale, Johan&Levi and Maria Pacini Fazzi Editore. 
The exhibtion will be accompanied by the catalogue Claudio Olivieri, an interview with G. Bonomi by A. Baldoni, ed. Glenda Cinquegrana Art Consulting, Milan, 2023.


1   Fagone V., Claudio Olivieri, in Il Milione n. 136, Milano, 15th November – 4th December1969

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