Collectors Preview: Friday 24 June, 10am – 7pm; Saturday 25 June, 10am – 2pm
Public Days: 25 June, 2 – 7pm; 26 – 30 June: 10am – 7pm
Alberto Burri | Giorgio de Chirico | Lucio Fontana | Hans Hartung | Georges Mathieu | Joan Miró | Fausto Melotti | Giorgio Morandi | Jean-Paul Riopelle | Victor Vasarely
Mazzoleni is pleased to announce its participation in TEFAF Maastricht 2022. The presentation will focus on a selection of works by post-war masters whose research evolves between matter and gesture, surface and structure, abstract and figurative.
Spatiality and substance will be explored through the works of Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri.With the intervention of the pioneering cuts and holes on the canvas, Fontana opens the surface towards a third dimension: on display will be 1950s examples of the Concetto Spaziale (Spatial Concept) and buchi (‘holes’) series highlighting the artist’s conceptual research with monochromatic surfaces, as well as fragments of coloured glass and silver powder. Alberto Burri’s technical research on the use of materials will be exemplified by works created between the 1950s and 1980s belonging to the Cretto and Combustione (Combustion) series.
Gestural abstraction will be represented by 50s and 60s paintings from three pioneers of Informal Art, namely Hans Hartung, Georges Mathieu, and Jean-Paul Riopelle. Experimenting with rapid movement, Hartung used ‘grattage’, a technique where freshly applied paint is removed by scraping to create dynamic works with intense marks, such as T1963-E10 (1963). This impressive vinyl and pastel on canvas will be juxtaposed to the vivid Lasgaroth (1967) by Mathieu – who introduced a performative dimension to his painting by executing large canvases before a live audience – and the large-scale Sphinx (1956) by Riopelle, a striking example of the artist’s 1950s “mosaic” works when he abandoned the paintbrush in favour of a palette knife to apply paint, creating unique sculptural quality.
Figurative post-war Italian art will be explored between metaphysical subjects and mystical still-life with works by Giorgio de Chirico and Giorgio Morandi, which will be juxtaposed to surrealist figures by Joan Miró. Finally, Optical Art will be testified by works belonging to Victor Vasarely’s so-called Black and White period from the 50s and 60s. The display will be completed with vibrant examples from the 1970s and 1980s, such as the Gestalt-chi (1973), a captivating green-tone oil on canvas that bears witness to the highly kinetic tensions of the artist’s geometric language.