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Some years ago, I came across a painting by Robert Kelly Alcuni anni fa, mentre ero in visita presso un mercante d’arte, while visiting one of his art dealers. I instantly became mi sono imbattuto in un quadro di Robert Kelly. Fu amore a fascinated with his work – the light green pastel colour prima vista: il verde pastello tenue che divideva il quadro in dividing the painting into two halves – with its exquisite due parti, il raffinato collage di carte antiche, con una palma collage of antique papers with a biblical palm tree. This dal richiamo biblico. Questo quadro suscitò istantaneamente painting gave me an instant impulse of wanting to be part of in me il desiderio di partecipare alla carriera artistica di RK, his art career, to exhibit his work, its elegant quality – the di far conoscere il suo lavoro in tutta la sua eleganza, il passato past, with its collages to a contemporaneous present, with che si lega coi suoi collage ad un mondo contemporaneo the monochrome details of the paintings; two worlds unite. fatto di dettagli monocromatici; l’unione di due mondi. In 2005, I gave Robert his first solo exhibition in Italy. From Nel 2005 organizzai la prima personale italiana di Robert. there on,a fantastic professional relationship and unique Da allora è nata tra di noi una fantastica relazione friendship has developed. During my numerous visits to New professionale ed un’amicizia unica. Nel corso delle mie York we have had many discussions about the direction of his numerose visite a New York, abbiamo spesso parlato new work – his use of collaged manifests - applying of the front della direzione assunta dal suo nuovo lavoro - i collage di of the manifests facing the canvas for the viewer to evidence manifesti, con l’immagine rivolta alla tela per sottolinearne the “retro”, the emerging Tropos Series, with their geometric il “retro”, l’avvento delle Serie Tropos, le cui composizioni compositions establishing a connection with the phrases that geometriche stabiliscono un legame con le frasi che emerge from the verso of the manifests. An amazing series emergono dal verso dei manifesti. RK aveva dato vita ad of works was created which has evolved further in a bold una straordinaria serie di opere in audace evoluzione, ma manner - always with his great precision and refinement. sempre contraddistinte da grande precisione e raffinatezza. We have also experienced some great times – visiting art Abbiamo trascorso assieme anche ore esaltanti – visitando fairs, continuously discussing the contemporary art trends, le fiere d’arte, dibattendo continuamente le tendenze enjoying ourselves immensely by meeting art dealers and dell’arte contemporanea, divertendoci immensamente collectors, museum directors, great dinners, skiing in Cortina nell’incontro con mercanti e collezionisti d’arte, direttori di D’Ampezzo - as my private instructor due to his fantastic musei, partecipando a cene fantastiche o sciando a Cortina skiing abilties and style, together with his great love, Shirine. D’Ampezzo, dove, insieme al grande amore della sua vita, Shirine, si è preso cura di me, diventando il mio istruttore I want to give my sincere gratitude to Robert for this second privato di sci, sport in cui eccelle per abilità e stile. great exhibition in Italy and for allowing me to represent him in Italy and Europe, which has given me the opportunity to Desidero esprimere a Robert la mia sincera gratitudine per enhance important Private and Public European collections la sua seconda grande mostra italiana e per avermi concesso with his works of art. I also want to give my special thanks il privilegio di rappresentarlo in Italia e in Europa, il che to Spazio Bianco Relais San Maurizio - Cristina Franzoni mi ha dato l’opportunità di arricchire importanti collezioni and Pier Domenico Gallo, for allowing me to do this great europee pubbliche e private con le sue opere d’arte. Un exhibition Project with their support. grazie particolare anche allo Spazio Bianco Relais San Maurizio, a Cristina Franzoni e Pier Domenico Gallo, per Roberto Annicchiarico avermi aiutato con il loro sostegno a realizzare questo AR / Contemporary Art grande progetto espositivo. Roberto Annicchiarico AR / Contemporary Art / Luminous, highly charged and in the present, Robert Kelly’s in the process of composing formal puzzles. Addressing the composition. Here lies Kelly’s signature interest in literally work inscribes a history of culture upon canvas like notes full expanse of a canvas covered entirely with paper, he building rather than painting a painting; the composition PAPER from a diary, a palimpsest,a paper trail. In many of these masterfully builds up his surface with the pared down tools of painted elements and material overlays constitute an new works, Kelly addresses this historic present through of line, form and color. Given their remarkable elegance, aleatory play of concision and refinement. With the odd dot, the nuances disclosed in the fragments of text found in sheen and tactile qualities, the paintings invite drop-dead splash and spatter of pigment shimmering on the surface, TRAILS the inventory of vintage posters and sheets of archival awe. Such exquisite qualities are found in two recent such iterations are left behind as elements of the unfolding newsprint he uses as essential components in his lustrous large-scale works in oil and mixed media on canvas that narrative within the paper’s trail, receding and lapping Edward Leffingwell surfaces. Acknowledging the subtleties of change attributed incorporate vintage poster materials from a mid 20th century forward like water over sand. September, 2010 to the passage of time as the inks burn through from recto films abutted with cut sheets of archival newsprint and to verso, he uses the flipside of these found papers for the titled as the “Nocturnes” of Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Visconti’s A master of difficult things, Kelly is a patient and focused fleeting memory of their previous narratives. The vintage The Damned. A third incorporates the collage of a venerable artist. With an informed regard for the material qualities of posters are printed with lithographic rather than synthetic label of Cognac in Nocturne Grande XXI. These recent works the making of art, fueled by his experiences as an inveterate inks allowing for a richer bleed, and with skims of acrylic celebrate the architectural capacity of the post to lift and traveler, he searches for a harmonious balance where history as an adhesive, he constructs his surfaces, wet on wet. the lintel to bear. As Kelly covers the canvas with paper and personal exploration continually yield new pathways Tooling the paper flat, he places one element next to those overlays that grip around the edges, he creates a kind of of process and image. His work has become so sufficiently that follow with a mason’s precision as he expels excess air, armature graced with a sculptural materiality and serenity self-composed that it may seem to draw itself, to exist as an water and acrylic for a marriage of material. of form, a visual simplicity suggesting a flattening as in the object with an irrefutable presence. work of Masaccio, Piero della Francesca and Lorenzetti. As a matter of principle concern in this career-long discourse on the conversation of materials and their use, the work Relatively intimate in scale, his sage-green Tropos in oil and remains remarkable for its simplicity and restraint. The mixed media on panel precede his homage to Italian cinema. discovery of his layered components becomes increasingly Here, the text is clear and inviting, a super-bold sans serif, rational and accessible through the creation of a formal and reversed, and the gradient green fields intersected with distinctive abstract language--a clear voice--with specific black forms suggesting pedestals. Kelly regards such burns elements so imbued that they come to seem inevitable, as on the backsides of this intimate collection of paper as though they themselves possessed an emphatic ability to pivotal abstract elements of the larger work, the information manifest sui generis. His influences include the De Stijl of the poster remaining broadly referential, relatively dense movement, Malevich and Mondrian and the modernist and sufficiently luminous to serve as symbolic figure to pursuits from the Bauhaus to Joaquin Torres-Garcia, to ground signifiers, as well as compositional counterweights. which roster he adds Guston, Diebenkorn, Schwitters, A study into process and composition occurs in the Babel Blinky Palermo and Brazilian Neo-Concretists Lydia Clark Series where the phantom faces and emerging text exchange and Helio Oiticica. Kelly’s shared affinities with these artists dialogue with black rectangular forms resembling the suggest more the pleasure he derives from such a broad reductive figures of Joel Shapiro’s similarly dynamic work. spectrum of concerns than any specific formal meaning derived in particular from any one determinate lineage. In his Mimesis Series, fields figured with the square, arc and circle speak from an architecture out of Malevich’s Acknowledging the near lapidary nature of a hard-won Supremetist imperatives based on geometric forms; their process, the work is, in a sense, a conflation of collage formal qualities so expansive and so composed as to flex. and painting. Rectilinear color fields of oil pigments are In a pairing of motifs, or doubling of forms that emphasize subsequently laid down with a trowel-like brush leaving both their singularity and coupling into a sculptural bond, a fine, rhythmic pattern formed in drags across the Kelly creates a powerful sweep of reversing pigments across overlapping sides or ridges of the paper cuts, covering his tile-like constructed surfaces. Their lustrous finish is a the surface and revealing an overall grid. The remaining critically significant element Kelly has likened to the patina uncovered compositions of vintage papers reveal diverse of bone, polished ivory, burnished alabaster or limestone.