With Afro - The Poetry of Painting, SETAREH presents the first solo exhibition of the Italian painter in Germany since he was represented with major work shows at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Kunstverein Hamburg and the Kunsthalle Darmstadt in the late 1960s. It is conceived in close cooperation with the Italian-based Fondazione Afro Basaldella. All the works on display derive exclusively from the artist's estate.

It is the first time ever, that the selected paintings on canvas and paper, with a focus on the 1950s and 1960s, are shown to the public. This presentation thus thematically ties in with the exhibitions DEPARTURE FROM THE SURFACE - The Invention of Italian Modernism (2015), A Gesture of Conviction - Women of Abstract Expressionism (2018) and Art of Another Kind - A new Approach to Postwar Abstraction (2021) shown by SETAREH in recent years, which already exposed renowned art after 1945 as a decisive international phenomenon of postmodernism.

Today, Afro's work is held in high esteem by connoisseurs and collectors not only in Italy and Europe, but also in the USA. Most recently, his works were shown at this year's Biennale di Venezia with the retrospective 1950-1970 From Italy to America and Back at Ca' Pesaro - Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna.

With this exhibition, Afro's œuvre is thus once again seen in a context that, in addition to the quality of his works, also brings the art-historical relevance of his oeuvre into contemporary consideration.

Today, paintings by the artist can be found in many important public and private collections: including the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, the Tate Modern in London and the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

Press release courtesy SETAREH.