Gianriccardo Piccoli, STAIRS

Room 11

«There are strange coincidences of a secret design that reveals itself in the existing and comforts its transit. I had made a work on some rooms and a theme appeared that mysteriously brought them to Novate. The two large canvases in the exhibition, composed of a double frame, reflect a memory of my work removed from the superficiality of the gaze and restored to the slowness of contemplation. They are feeble gauzes that distance themselves from the peremptory nature of the underlying memories painted on the first canvas and live only on the emotion that unconsciously resurfaces there. They are the daily mourners of a fragility of being comforted by hints of slender drawing affirmations, often constructed as objects in need of trust in the unfolding of the iron wire that builds them and in the tissue paper that lovingly protects them. “A veil of restless dust” partly covers the first gauze in wax and refers to the secrecy of the vision.»
Gianriccardo Piccoli

«Piccoli is a passionate troubadour, always on the lookout for a salvaged object, abandoned or just forgotten in some corner of the house. For the most part they are materials of no value, fished out from the bric-a-brac that accumulates undisturbed in domestic spaces, then filled with meaning in an orchestration at the service of a slender narrative mechanism. A working method that calls into question Piccoli’s recent passion for children’s drawings.»
Simone Facchinetti

THE ARTIST

Gianriccardo Piccoli was born in Milan in 1941. He graduated from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and now lives and works between Bergamo and Basel. In the 1980s his research became more inclined towards abstraction and technical-linguistic experimentation, while maintaining independent drawing as a constant presence in his work. In 1984 he won the Feltrinelli Prize and in 1986 he participated in the Venice Biennale. He has taken part in various exhibitions in public and private venues, and several anthological exhibitions have been dedicated to him: in Wiesbaden in 1988, in Tenero and in Monza in 1990. He has exhibited extensively in Switzerland, establishing a privileged relationship with the Galerie Carzaniga in Basel. In 1995 he created a Via Crucis for the church of Sant’Agostino in Bergamo, with an exhibition design by Mario Botta. In 2007 the Galleria dello Scudo in Verona organised a monographic exhibition on his recent work (2001 – 2007). In the same year he created Palinsesto di cenere, a monumental installation created specifically for the Oratorio di San Lupo in Bergamo. In 2009, he held his solo exhibition Stanze per Villa Panza at Villa Panza in Biumo.