Zane Bennett Contemporary Art is pleased to announce an exhibition by Italian artist, Mimmo Paladino. The show opens on Friday, July 29, 2011 and continues through Friday, August 26, 2011. The opening reception is on Friday, July 29 at the gallery, 435 South Guadalupe Street, from 5:00-7:00 pm and coincide with the Railyard Arts District Last Friday Art Walk.
ABOUT – MIMMO PALADINO
Mimmo Paladino is among the most widely respected artists living today. He is a painter, printer and sculptor born in Campania, Southern Italy in 1948. He studied in the 1960s when minimalism and conceptualism dominated the international art scene. During the early 1970s he concentrated on drawings, greatly influenced by imagery from classical history, mythology and Christianity. His first solo exhibition was held at the Studio Oggetto, Caserta in 1969 and since then he has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide.
Paladino began his career at a time when Neo-Expressionism was gaining popularity, largely as a reaction against the seemingly cold and simple forms of Minimalism and conceptual art’s emphasis on ideas over aesthetics. In the late 1970s, he along with Sandro Chio, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cusshi and Nicola de Maria, were original members of the ‘transavanguardia’ (beyond the avant-garde), a movement that was largely an Expressionist revival. The movement returned to what may be regarded as traditional and representational subjects in sculpture and painting. The human form was a central focus of Neo-expressionism, as was history and mythology. Paladino’s birthplace of Campania, a region colonized by the Ancient Greeks and an important cultural center during the Roman republic, significantly influenced his use of imagery and allegory.
Since the mid 1970s Paladino has been represented at numerous international exhibitions. In 1980 he displayed his work at the Venice Biennale, in the Aperto 80 exhibition. He had a leading part in the international revival of painting and it was in 1985 that a painting exhibition held in numerous Central European museums, from the Kkunstallein Basel, to the Museum Golkwang in Essen and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, that Paladino finally gained international fame. At the same time, two solo exhibitions were held simultaneously in New York, extending his fame to the United States.
Paladino began making sculptures in the early 1980s. Exhibitions followed at the Royal Academy of Art in London and the Paris Biennale. He showed throughout the United States at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. In 2005 he was awarded an exhibition of major sculptures at the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna Ca’ Pesaro in Venice, curated by Enzo di Martino for the Biennale. In 2003, with artists, Chia, Clemente, Cucchi and de Maria, he put on Transavanguardia 1979-1985 at the Castello di Rivol Museo di Art Contemporanea.
There are many dimensions to Mimmo Paladino. He has created doors for the Padre Pio church in San Giovanni Rotondo, designed by Renzo Piano, and the San Giovanni Battista church in Lecce. At the end of 2005 a major exhibition dedicated to Cervantes’ Don Quixote, featured paintings, sculptures, drawings and a film at the Museo Capodimonte in Naples. The film was met with great reviews when presented at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. Interested in the relationship between visual art and sound, a major installation at the Museo dell’ Ara Pacis in Rome was set to music by the innovator of ambient music, Brian Eno.
Currently the extraordinary exhibition titled Three Decades of Creativity is at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, running through July 10, 2011. The exhibition starts outside the palazzo where Cacciatore di stelle (Star Hunter) is installed, a private jet painted with ancestral symbols, constellations and geometrical designs in homage to the skies in which it travels. More than fifty works are on view in installations which blend Paladino’s different art styles, forms and materials. Flavio Arensi, curator of the exhibition, presents the artist’s stages of development, always new but at the same time faithful to itself, moving from figurative art to Trans-avant-garde and sculpture.
Paladino’s passions include poetry and music. He has also designed furniture but his most widely recognized claim to design fame is his “Swatch” watch. He is decorated with the title of Honorary Member by the Royal Academy of London. The University of Lugano in Switzerland granted him a honoris causa degree in Architecture. He currently lives and works in Rome and Paduli.
Zane Bennett Contemporary Art will feature Mimmo Paladino as a one-artist installation at Art Santa Fe, July 7-10, 2011. A multi-media presentation will be on view during the opening and throughout the exhibition as the artist will not be present.
www.zanebennettgallery.com