An exhibition in Rome to celebrate Guido Strazza’s 100th birthday
The Academy of Fine Arts in Rome is hosting, until 16 January 2023, the exhibition “Guido Stazza. The gesture and the sign”, organized to celebrate the 100th birthday of Guido Strazza, born in Santa Fiora on 21 December 1922.
From 28 November 2022 to 16 January 2023, theAcademy of Fine Arts in Romein its headquarters in via Ripetta 222, hosts the exhibition Guido Stazza. The gesture and the sign. A 100th anniversary exhibitionset up to celebrate the centenary of Guido Strazza (SantaFiora, 1922). The anthological review, set up in Colleoni Room, exhibits paintings, etchings and drawings from throughout the career of the great artist who began his career as a futurist artist. The exhibition intends to celebrate one of the greatest artists of the Italian twentieth century, on the occasion of his one hundredth birthday, on 21 December 2022. The graphic and pictorial aspects of his “marking” are investigated and explored in the catalog by essays and testimonies by Franco Fanelli, Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi, Alessandro Tosi, Giulia Napoleone, Roberto Piloni, Marina Bindella, Gianluca Murasecchi and an interview with the artist by Flavia Matitti.
“In this exhibition,” he says Gianluca Murasecchi, curator of the exhibition, “it was a question of choosing parts of a whole or the whole in part, the second hypothesis prevailed, albeit more difficult to implement, finally, it necessarily developed in giving visibility to the data of the variations on the theme, in the ‘to offer an overview of the possibilities of cultural connection, in the analysis of the multiformity of the languages ignited by a single fulcrum of conception, the sign, also placing a possible gaze on the design and generative factor of Strazza’s work, that is, on unpublished drawings, never published and exhibited, which put us before a lightning-fast search, across the board, sometimes insisted until the solution stubbornly found years later. The figure of an artist emerges who has chosen the graphic data as a privileged data but not postponed to a painting of glazes and tempera colors. Tempera painting that recalls what could be defined as a ‘contemporary fourteenth century’, composed of fine glazes such as onion shells or magmatic materials that capture in depth underground ignitions, of bloody sabers, which make us feel every underlying material on our skin. Opaque vividness of color that only tempera can convey”.
Born on 21 December 1922 in Santa Fiora (GR), he began his artistic activity at a very young age under the guidance of Marinetti, who in 1942 invited him to aeropainting exhibitions, at Palazzo Braschi in Rome and at the Venice Biennale. He graduated in engineering in Rome in 1946 but after two years he abandoned the profession to devote himself to painting. He leaves for South America, visits Chile, Brazil and Peru where he develops a broad interest in pre-Incan art. In Rio de Janeiro Fayga Ostrowerlo begins to practice engraving techniques, in Sao Paulo he exhibits at the Art Biennale in 1951 and 1953. he Returns to Italy in 1954 and opens a studio in Venice. From 1957 to 1963 he lived in Milan and created the tales of signs and the long paintings on rolls and the studies on Metamorphosis of forms, collected in a series of themed pictorial cycles dedicated to the landscape in 1956, to the Balzi Rossi in 1958 and to the Dutch landscape in 1961. He then returned to Rome and, between 1964 and 1967, he attended the laboratory of the National Chalcography where he studied the language of the incision. The result of this exploration was presented in 1968 at the Venice Biennale where he exhibited in a personal room. In 1979 Scheiwiller published his book The gesture and the sign and exhibited the Quadrangular plot series at Palazzo Reale in Milan. Other cycles of painting and engraving will follow: Segni di Roma, Cosmati, Giardino di Euclide, Aure and Archi. In 1984 he again had a personal room at the Venice Biennale. Among the many exhibitions in the following years we remember the anthological at the Calcografia Nazionale in 1990, the one at the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza in 2005 and the great anthological at the National Gallery of Modern Art in 2017. He is passionately dedicated to teaching and also teaches at the National Calcography, at Wesleyan University, at the University of Siena, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, of which he was then director in 1985-88, and at the Free School of Graphics in Matera. His works are also held in the British Museum in London, the Ludwig in Cologne, the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, the Vatican Museums, the Uffizi, the Mart in Rovereto, the Ca d’Oro in Venice and the Gnam in Rome, which acquires the his archive. He obtained various awards, including: the Feltrinelli Prize of the Accademia dei Lincei in 1988 for graphics and in 2003 for engraving, the «Cultori di Roma» Prize in 2002, the Vittorio De Sica prize for visual arts in 2014 and other. He is a member of the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België, of the National Institute of Roman Studies and of the National Academy of San Luca, which he chaired in 2011-12. From 28 November 2022 to 16 January 2023 the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome celebrates its one hundred years with an exhibition in the Sala Colleoni curated by Gianluca Murasecchi. For the occasion, the artist donated a series of engravings to the Academy
Days and times of the exhibition: from Monday to Saturday, from 8 to 19:15. The exhibition will be closed on public holidays and during the Christmas holidays from 24 December 2022 to 8 January 2023, and will reopen to the public on Monday 9 January at the same times.
An exhibition in Rome to celebrate Guido Strazza’s 100th birthday |
If you liked this article or found it interesting,
sign up for our free newsletter!
No spam, just one issue on Sunday, plus any extras, to keep you updated on all our news!
Your weekly read on the entire art world