FRANCESCO CLEMENTE of an Historical Nature

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FRANCESCO CLEMENTE of an Historical Nature FRANCESCO CLEMENTE Of an Historical Nature text JOHN NEWSOM portrait SANTE D’ORAZIO 16 17 Regarding painting - The experience of etc. Endless imagination... which begs the But what is ‘truth’ in relationship to the ‘surprise’ is a holy moment. This may question, “Where do you go when you’ve idea of a New York painter? Or the New be the only moment necessary. It’s not a gone everywhere?” You go to New York! York School for that matter? It’s not a title state of the mind nor body, but one of the that belongs strictly to the Greenbergian spirit. Goya perceived this revelation in New York is ever the port city. A home painters of the 1950’s, on the contrary - the the mental asylum of Saragossa, Van Gogh away from home of Clemente’s original ‘truth’ is an old tire, worn out on the road. among the wheat fields of Arles, Pollock birthplace of Naples, Italy. It makes perfect Miles and miles of canvas, tons of paint, a on the ground in East Hampton - the best sense that New York would eventually thousand brushes and rivers of linseed oil painters always and must - Francesco become he and his wife’s nest, along and turpentine, dinner parties stretching Clemente as well. Granted, of the above with their family of four children. New deep into the night and wee mornings, mentioned names (to sight a few), York City has a specificity to it as well discussions in crazy and refined places Clemente is the only ‘Italian’, and as we as the ‘otherness’. A walking city lends with some of the most absurd, wild and know - Italian painters require a bit more itself to an explorer, as it did and does endlessly intriguing minds of an age. THIS desertion. Let’s begin with Alighiero for Francesco Clemente. Exhibiting is the truth of a New York painter... and Boetti... Although Boetti was/is classified throughout the 1980’s primarily at then 9-11. as a ‘conceptualist’, the historical nature SperoneWestwater in New York, of his work resonates beyond mere Clemente’s work arose to the world stage Arguably, Clemente’s greatest and most ideas to embrace whole-heartedly the and consciousness. Collaborating with significant body of work had yet to be urgency of poetics, leaning towards a various poets on illuminated texts, such produced. The period was 2000-2003. painting mindset. A direct correlation as ‘White Shroud’ with then good friend The exhibition that Clemente mounted can be drawn between this notion and Allen Ginsberg in 1983, or Savino’s spanned the entire West 24th Street gallery the early works on paper of a then epic masterpiece ‘The Departure of the of Larry Gagosian. The art-world was younger and impressionable Francesco Argonaut’ that Clemente illuminated still very much reeling from the epic Clemente. Boetti was Clemente’s active as well in 1983. These poetic outlets attack and devastation brought onto the mentor during the time-frame of the late expanded the vision even more so and city on 9-11. Francesco Clemente faced 1960’s early 70’s. While the accompanying were beautifully installed in Clemente’s this narrative head on in one of the most geographical travels that were undertaken mid-career Guggenheim retrospective epically charged painting exhibitions in by both Clemente and the senior artist in 1999. Also, within the collaborative New York City history. It was a full meal, of ten years, Boetti - led to Afghanistan, framework, in 1984 Clemente was and was permeated with an indelible it became the southern locale of India approached by the Swiss art dealer Bruno feeling of loss and sadness. One could feel where Clemente had his artistic revelation, Bischofberger and asked to begin passing humanity slipping away. The figure was his ‘holy moment’. (I decided to write some paintings around with Andy Warhol reduced to emblematic material of other this piece independently of interviewing and Jean Michel-Basquiat. These rather forms - a house of cards, musical notes, a Francesco Clemente, opting instead for large canvases resulted in a tremendous torn libretto, an overturned bowl, a drifting a broader interpretation from one painter collaborative body of work between the cloud on a mundane horizon. The works to another.) In past interviews though, three painters and now only grow stronger included in the exhibition ranged from Clemente mentions various inspirational with age and time. Exhibited recently smaller paintings on linen, to monumental troupes of the 1960’s as touchstones that in their totality at The Federal Art and tempra paintings on denim, and frescos eventually would act as pillars as well as Exhibtion Hall in Bonn, Germany - the on plaster panels. The show was panned springboards for his early iconography. Warhol, Basquiat, Clemente collaborative by critics across the board. Maybe it was Ancient wisdom, various architectural paintings resound with buoyant innovation still to soon for such an intimate statement spaces, The Beats, eroticism, global and focuses each of the three painters by one of New York’s greatest artistic religions and the esoteric, Hendrix, LSD, artistic temperaments. Then, in the winter sons. Because as we know, sometimes the ex-pats and the muses - these are just a of 1987 - February 22nd to be exact - Andy subtlest move can be the grandest gesture. few examples of the deep content needed Warhol died at New York Hospital-Cornell But the painters got it, they understood in order to fill the active imagination of Medical Center in New York City of a the level of commitment of that particular a serious painter not willing to accept heart attack related to surgery. The New exhibition of Clemente’s. Now that history mediocracy and easy outs. So, Clemente York art-world would never be the same. It has again moved on in some time, one can created an encyclopedic volume of had lost it’s great sage, the king was dead. look back and appreciate the immensity of drawings while traveling in India - pastels, Shortly thereafter Jean-Michel Basquiat that particular body of work. See, paintings graphites, pen and inks, and watercolors. died of a heroin overdose on August 12th, stay exactly the same. It’s the world This early body of work located what 1988 in his downtown Manhattan atelier. around them that changes. To the degree would later blossom into the defining Granted, Francesco Clemente’s ‘star’, if that Clemente was able to pinpoint the backbone of Clemente’s oeuvre, a self- you will, rose way above the isolation feeling of that loss of innocence for New replenishing well of images that he would of stardom that success had brought to York City, as well as the reverberance felt return to again and again. The intellectual the likes of actually both of the a-for- throughout the other locales of the world rigor of artists coming up at the same mentioned painters above. Clemente is in which Clemente had ties to, this was time as Clemente under such giants of and remains to be primarily a ‘painter’s meaning, this was structure as a whole, yet influence as Joseph Beuys and Andy painter’. Mourning past... the 1980’s past... fractured, like America on 9-12-2011. It Warhol, created a new way of looking at new modes of artistic expression were would be the final New York exhibition to the world through the use of contemporary ushered in via the 1990’s approaching date of Francesco Clemente’s at Gagosian art. Reintroducing traditional aspects of the new millennium. Clemente continued Gallery. the figure, self-portraiture, and classical to exhibit regularly in New York and materials - this challenged the very notion abroad, most notably at Gagosian Gallery. A garden compost pile is made up of old of the conceptualists’ stance of the period Exhibition after exhibition would unfold debris and detritus. The organic waste prior to the 1980’s. The advent of the continued chapters of Clemente’s ever is spread on young top soil. The waste digital age had yet to present itself, artists evolving body of work. From shows such then becomes a replenishing fertilizer were still capable of getting ‘lost’, and as ‘Testa Coda’, ‘The Black Paintings’, for new growth for new plants. In the there was no other example of an artist ‘Purgatorio’, ‘Anamorphosis’, ‘The years to follow leading up to present more diligent and aligned to this task than Book of the Sea’, etc... these are not your day, Clemente made changes. He moved Franceso Clemente. His travels took him average post-modern paintings. Only his primary studio from Manhattan to throughout the world, discovering and relentless questioning along with an almost Brooklyn, yet keeping the old location Above: dissecting world cultures and adapting unconscious or sublime sense of self can in Manhattan as an additional space. them to a bracingly beautiful sense of produce such pictorial weight. Looking He walked and biked across the bridge, House of Cards painting. From ephemeral frescos to at Rothko, Kline, even DeKooning - the back and forth and back and forth. He 2001 heavily ladened oils on linen, temperas, true foundational painters of the New York was creating again anew with a returned Oil on linen miniatures (which he would employ local School, including Philip Guston - this is focus. Portraiture had always played an 68 x 60-1/2in. artisans to assist in the production), textiles what Clemente became as a painter in important roll in this work. Clemente Fisher Landau Center for the Arts, New York to a degree, and paintings on assemblages, the late 1990’s, a true New York painter. continued work on a series of portraits 18 19 of friends, family, colleagues, artists, in Manhattan respectively.
Recommended publications
  • Francesco Clemente
    GALERIE THADDAEUS ROPAC FRANCESCO CLEMENTE JIGSAW PUZZLE PARIS DEBELLEYME 06 Tuesday - 21 Saturday "The images present themselves quickly, in a rushed, hectic, vivid, urgent way. I make raw ink drawings to remember what I see, and then that becomes like a music score." - Francesco Clemente After showing Francesco Clemente's work at our Salzburg gallery in 2004 and 2007, we are very pleased to announce his first solo exhibition of works on paper. Francesco Clemente is one of the most renowned international artists who revitalized figurative painting with the emergence of the Neo- Expressionist movement in the late 1970s early 80s. Clemente's unique style combines the tradition of Indian imagery, the Romanticism of William Blake and of Italian Renaissance frescoes to make evocative and powerful works in a sensuous palette. In this exhibition, the artist will present 21 new pastels and watercolors, all in the form of a puzzle piece, installed to create a mosaic of poetic, colorful figurative images, which do not necessarily reveal a whole picture. As in much of his work, Clemente makes references to non-Western symbols, myth and spirituality, astrology and the four elements, sexuality and senses, as well as dream-like visions. Francesco Clemente was born in 1952 in Naples. From 1970 he studied architecture at the University of Rome, and began to exhibit his drawings, photographs and conceptual works in Europe. From 1973, he travelled regularly to India, and in 1981 he moved to New York. Since the mid-80s, Clemente's work has been the subject of many exhibitions: in the Berlin National Gallery (1984/85), Basel Museum of Contemporary Art (1987), Philadelphia Museum of Art (1990), Royal Academy of Arts, London (1991), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1994/95), Guggenheim Museum, New York (1999/2000), Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2004), the National Archaeology Museum, Naples (2002/03) and the National Museum of XXIst Century Art, Rome (2006).
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  • Of Francesco Clemente
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  • Francesco Clemente: India Vito Schnabel Projects, New York November 8, 2019 – January 17, 2020
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  • 2008 Brooks, Adams
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  • Francesco Clemente Collaboration
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  • I N T E R V I E W W I T H a C H I L L E B O N I T O O L I V a I N I T a L I a N M I N I
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  • Francesco Clemente’S Acclaimed ‘Inspired by India’ Exhibition Which Opened at the Rubin Museum in 2014
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  • Mimmo Paladino (1948 - )
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  • Francesco Clemente
    GALERIE THADDAEUS ROPAC FRANCESCO CLEMENTE FRANCESCO CLEMENTE SALZBURG VILLA KAST 31 Saturday - 19 Saturday During the 1980s, the Italian painter Francesco Clemente became one of the outstanding international artists. Harking back to the tradition of Indian imagery, the Romanticism of William Blake and Italian Renaissance fresco painting, he developed in the late 1970s a poetic form which made a significant contribution to the return of figurative painting. "I could not believe the style of the first show I saw of Francesco Clemente. When I met him at an opening a couple of weeks later, I said: 'You're the best thing out of Italy since De Chirico' - and we became friends. Since I am not a spontaneous person, I think I was as shocked as Francesco. I loved the dry and physical surfaces, the uncompromising, strong images, the combination of obsessive primitive energy for details and the worldly sophistication in integrating content and style" (Alex Katz). The Salzburg exhibition comprises thirteen powerful portraits of people from the artist's immediate circle of friends and family. The genre of the portrait has a specific place in Clemente's œuvre: as in the work of American artists such as Chuck Close, Andy Warhol or Alex Katz, Clemente's portraits of outstanding figures in the world of music, art and literature have proved to be a constant seismograph of the state of a society. Clemente takes an eastern view of a western genre; although he observes with extreme precision the details of his subjects' physiognomy, dress and hair- style, they appear to exist in some metaphysical region with no recognisable setting - they look two-dimensional and unreal, like naïve, primitivistic, archaic images of the saints of some unknown cultural area.
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  • FRANCESCO CLEMENTE September 7 Through November 10, 2012
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 7 th, 2012 FRANCESCO CLEMENTE September 7 through November 10, 2012 VIP opening reception: September 7,2012, 6 to 8 pm Venue: James Cohan Gallery Shanghai Address: 1F, Building 1, No.170 Yueyang Road, by Yongjia Road FRANCESCO CLEMENTE 弗朗切斯科•克莱门特 Second of the Three 第二个,2011, Watercolor on paper 纸本水彩 72 11/16 x 103 7/8 inches; 184.63 x 263.84 cm James Cohan Gallery Shanghai is pleased to present its first solo exhibition with the internationally acclaimed artist Francesco Clemente, and the artist’s first-ever exhibition in mainland China. Francesco Clemente, born in 1952 in Naples, Italy, is widely recognized as a defining contemporary artist for the past four decades who has established an extraordinary, singular pictorial language that draws on timeless symbols, mythologies, cultures, and philosophies. The diversity of the artist’s chosen mediums— paintings, frescos, watercolors, pastels, collage, and gouache—and the themes and subject matter of his works have been deeply informed by Clemente’s nomadic artistic life. Since the early 1970s the artist has continually traveled between Italy and India where many of the works in this current exhibition were made. He continued to travel to India, after settling in New York with his wife and family in 1980, where Clemente quickly became a vital member of the community of artists and writers. He collaborated with close friends, notably the poets Allen Ginsberg and Robert Creeley, and in 1981, reacting against a wave of anti-painting sentiment among critical circles, Clemente initiated a series of collaborative paintings with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol.
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  • Francesco Clemente
    FRANCESCO CLEMENTE Francesco Clemente: on cloud nine by Claire Price December 11, 2019 Francesco Clemente, Clouds VI, 2018, oil on canvas, 71 x 87 inches (180.3 x 221 cm); © Francesco Clemente; Courtesy the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery A nomadic spirit, Francesco Clemente has enthralled art Softly spoken and elegantly dressed, Clemente is the lovers for more than 40 years with his exploration of identity surprisingly mild face behind vivid, often confrontational, and spirituality. Now, his distinctive art is being celebrated artworks that espouse mysticism and ambiguity as well with a new exhibition in St Moritz. Claire Price tells us more as expressive portrayals of the human body. His sartorial elegance has also given him an unexpected entry into Bold, erotic, distorted and spiritual, the work of artist popular culture, with photoshoots in GQ magazine and a Francesco Clemente has drawn crowds to galleries all over guest turn as a psychiatrist in the award-winning film Good the world, from the Guggenheim Museum in New York City Will Hunting. to The Royal Academy in London. “Francesco has consistently built a visual language that is Friend of artistic A-listers Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel unique to his work but is actually quite universal,” enthuses Basquiat, collaborator of writers Allen Ginsberg and Salman art dealer and gallery owner Vito Schnabel. “He has Rushdie, and a leader in the Transavanguardia movement, pioneered a very special kind of figuration that draws on Clemente has been hailed as both a nomad and a sage. But the influences of history, literature and ancient stories to the artist himself has a simpler view of his life and art.
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  • Bibliography Francesco Clemente
    Bibliography Francesco Clemente BIBLIOGRAPHY—Solo Exhibition Catalogues (chronological) (Gratis 1978) Gratis. Exhibition catalogue and artist’s book. Geneva: Centre d’Art Contemporain, 1978. (P.M.F.C. 1978) Francesco Clemente P.M.F.C. Exhibition catalogue. Cologne: Galerie Paul Maenz, 1978. (Undae Clemente flamina pulsae 1978) Undae Clemente flamina pulsae. Exhibition catalogue and artist’s book. Amsterdam: Art & Project, 1978. (Lisson 1979) Exhibition catalogue. London: Lisson Gallery, 1979. (Non Scopa 1979) Francesco Clemente: Non Scopa. Exhibition catalogue and artist’s book. Turin: Gian Enzo Sperone, 1979. (Milan 1980) Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, “Francesco Clemente,” dates unknown, 1980. Catalogue with text by Germano Celant. (Sperone Westwater Fischer 1980) Exhibition catalogue. New York: Sperone Westwater Fischer, 1980. (Maenz 1980) Francesco Clemente. Exhibition catalogue. Cologne: Galerie Paul Maenz, 1980. (Art & Project 1980–81) New Works. Exhibition catalogue. Amsterdam: Art & Project, 1980–81. (Matrix 1981) Francesco Clemente/Matrix 46. Exhibition brochure. Berkeley: University Art Museum, University of California, 1981. (Pinxit 1981) Francesco Clemente Pinxit. Exhibition catalogue and artist’s book. London: Anthony d’Offay Gallery, 1981. (Bischofberger 1981) Francesco Clemente: New Works. Exhibition catalogue. Zurich: Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, 1981. (Viaggatore Napoletano 1982) Francesco Clemente: Il viaggiatore napoletano. Exhibition catalogue and artist’s book. Cologne: Galerie Paul Maenz, 1982. (Bischofberger 1982–83) Francesco Clemente: Watercolours. Exhibition catalogue and artist’s book. Zurich: Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, 1982–83. (Fourteen Stations 1983) Francesco Clemente: The Fourteen Stations. Exhibition catalogue. London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1983. (Sperone Westwater/Boone 1983) Francesco Clemente. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Sperone Westwater; New York: Mary Boone Gallery, 1983. (White Shroud 1984) Allen Ginsberg/Francesco Clemente: White Shroud.
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