White Views
A group show curated by Maria Alicata
Works by Gianfranco Baruchello, Marco Delogu, Bice Lazzari and Matteo Montani
White is a non-colour, but also the totality of all possible colours.
White is never completely pure. It can manifest itself within a great variety of pigments that offer a rich range of shades one may choose from.
This collective exhibition brings together artworks that aim to combine the white space of subtraction with the rarified universe of signs. This encounter thus becomes an occasion to establish a relation between the different ways in which the four artists have dealt with the dialogue between presences and absences. The exhibition proposes a conversation, a kind of crossing between the language of painting and that of photography. White is the fil rouge and the common element that can put these two codes in relation to each other.
The suggestions of this non colour are what stimulate the spectator to find such involvement as is necessary to access the realm of these artworks. The strength of white resides in the repositioning of the attention it demands from the complicit gaze: this imposes slowing down, looking up closely [at the artwork], stopping and even inspecting the surfaces to look for subtle changes in colour, light and texture.
Observing the artworks at close range, thin lines, different consistencies, outlines and colours emerge that compose the different nuances of white. These artworks do not express a univocal message but rather aim to look for a stimulus that can provoke the spectator. If white leads towards a different dimension in space and time, only by observing the artworks with careful attention may we learn something about them and react according to the laws of indignation, disorientation or abandonment.
Gianfranco Baruchello has been drawing invisible landscapes strewn with mysterious and intelligible signs since the 1960s. His canvasses become a space open to all possible relations. They are organic constructions devoid of a defined centre through which we may find words, images and signs: access routes intended to form multiple paths that open up infinite interpretations and narrations.
The photographs of Marco Delogu are interior landscapes born from his necessity to find a dialogue with nature through his search for light. His “nature bianche” challenge the frame, aiming to achieve a balance between black and white. The elements of nature are defined by this synthesis.
The canvasses of Bice Lazzari belong to the last period of her oeuvre. They are minimalist artworks made during the mid-1960s. The graphite signs on the white surface evoke analogies with the rhythm of music and poetry.
Matteo Montani uses sandpaper as his canvas. Sandpaper welcomes oil colours allowing iridescent particles to emerge, with varying intensity according to the light source. His imaginary landscapes host a game of reflections and hues generated by light, constant mutations determined by how light encounters the artworks.