PIER PAOLO CALZOLARI

Pier Paolo Calzolari is an emblematic figure in the Italian contemporary art scene. He is one of the most important of those artists who have achieved worldwide fame as a representative of Arte Povera since the late 1960s. Calzolari has developed an extraordinary œuvre based on the use of certain recurring materials, which deals in a sensual poetic way with the mutations of materials and with phenomena such as time and transience.

Muitos estudos para uma casa de limão is a suite complete series of 22 artworks that reflects the various stages of growth, riping and decay of lemons in gentle yet precise gestures and in a colouring which is both brilliant and delicate. In the single works-Arches paper mounted on board on which friable pastels merge with the milk tempera and with another of Calzolari’s signature substances, salt-the finest nuances become visible. The granular pigmented surface harmonises perfectly with the friable pastels and establishes a concrete metaphor for the look and feel of a lemon’s skin. In some works the lemons glow warm like the sun in bright yellow tones or like star-like points in the blue sky. In others, yellow faded spots seem to dissolve in the infinite emptiness of the white surface. Everything revolves around themes such as origin, transience, renewal, finiteness. With their open, ephemeral appearance, the works become projection screens for emotions, dreams and memories. Once fullly immersed in the works, the beholder gets lost in time and space.

Pier Paolo Calzolari (* 1943, Bologna) lives and works in Lisbon. He participated several times in the Venice Biennale and the Documenta in Kassel. His work has been shown in numerous national and international exhibitions. Calzolari’s works are included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Guggenheim Museum, New York, Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Palazzo Grassi, Punta della Dogana François Pinault Foundation, Venice, amongst many others.

In cooperation with Repetto Gallery, London.