Bernier / Eliades Gallery presents Pier Paolo Calzolari’s fifth solo exhibition. The show coincides with the artist’s exhibition at the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna di Ca’ Pesaro at this year’s Venice Biennale, and will present large-scale historic sculptures dating from 1970 to 2008. It also coincides with Calzolari’s participation in the landmark exhibition “Arte Povera International“, which is touring until early 2012 to the MAMBO museum (Bologna), MAXXI and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (Rome), the Castello di Rivoli (Turin), MADRE (Naples), and Viale Alemagna 6 as part of the Triennale di Milano.
Pier Paolo Calzolari is widely known as one of the most important protagonists of Arte Povera, while his work also bears the influence of Conceptual Art, American Minimalism and the interactivity of Joseph Beuys. His practice encompasses painting, sculpture, architecture, text, video, performance, fire, and the participation of people and animals. His first exhibition at Bernier gallery was in November 1978, followed by solo shows in 1981, 1984 and 1990.
Pier Paolo Calzolari was born in 1943 in Bologna, Italy. He spent his childhood and teenage years in Venice, where the city’s Byzantine artistic heritage and the unique quality of its light played a decisive role in shaping the sensibility of the future artist. In 1965 he returned to Bologna, where he set up his own studio, produced his first paintings and organised exhibitions of other artists, such as Aris Markopoulos, Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas and Mario Schifano.
In 1966–1967 he created his first installation, “Il filtro è benvenuto all’angelo”, one of the earliest interactive installations of its time, incorporating light, darkness, grass and birds. It demands the active participation of viewers and invites them to dress and undress, to move, to gather, to wander. The artist calls his work an “activation space”.
From 1967 to 1972 he moved between Paris, New York and Berlin, becoming associated with Arte Povera, and his text “La casa ideale” is recognised as a milestone in the history of the movement. He began an extensive cycle of works using refrigeration and neon, such as “Oroscopo come progetto della mia vita” and the “Gesti” series, in which the formation of ice builds up over time and brings to life the alchemical transformation of matter. Through this approach, the objects and materials the artist uses (fire, ice, iron, zinc, salt, mould, moss, smoke) take on a different life, alongside visual elements that echo the luminosity of Venetian marble.
In his works, Calzolari raises the ritual of everyday life to the level of aesthetic experience, in a horizontal relationship with the world and its history. His strength is marked by singular qualities: his pursuit of a saturation of the senses that touches the limits of madness, the way he renders visually the abstraction of thought and the essence of things, and his particular attention to the fragility of objects and materials.
In 1983 he set up his studio in Crete, but the blinding light of the South prevented any formal realisation of his ideas. He encountered the same problem in Morocco. Finally he returned to his homeland, and from 1984 to the present he has worked in Montefeltro, Italy. Pier Paolo Calzolari has created an aesthetic universe that is difficult to capture, since it is in itself an evolving work that continues to unfold over the years.
He has had landmark exhibitions worldwide, including: Pier Paolo Calzolari, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, 1994; Pier Paolo Calzolari, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli, Turin, 1994; François Pinault, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 2006; 52. Biennale di Venezia. Padiglione Venezia: Omaggio a Emilio Vedova, Padiglione Venezia, Giardini della Biennale, Venice, 2007; Quando il sognatore muore che ne è del sogno, Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, 2008; Che fare? Arte Povera – The Historic Years, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz – Linz, 2010–2011.
The gallery is open Tuesday to Friday, 10:30–20:00 / Saturday, 12:00–16:00.
11 EPTACHALKOU STREET ATHENS, GR-118 51
TEL: 210 3413936-7
