Francesco Clemente. In Between

The exhibition opens with works on the representation of the self, such as Autoritratto con oro (1979), Self-Portrait with Bird (1980) and Self-Portrait (1982). Self-portraits elaborate the theme of metamorphosis throughout the exhibition, as in the paintings Birthday Self-Portrait (2001), Taoist Self-Portrait (2005) and Father (2006), part of a group of works inspired by a stay in Brazil, as well as Self-Portrait as St. John (2011), and the evanescent After a Poem (2024).

Clemente's catalytic encounter with Indian culture, from 1973 on, is exemplified by historic works such as Two Painters (1980) and Francesco Clemente Pinxit (1981), as well as by more recent series such as Devigarh (2017). His move to New York in 1981 – where he still works in the same studio he had at the time – was a pivotal moment in the development of his pictorial language, as evidenced by emblematic works such as Porta Coeli (1983). There he began cultivating a network of fruitful collaborations with artists and poets, as demonstrated by Saxophone (1984), created with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, and by his artist's books, including Images from Mind and Space (1983), a collaborative effort with Allen Ginsberg.

For the first time since 1982 – when they were included in the Zeitgeist exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, dedicated to the new wave of painting then emerging in Europe and the United States – the three seminal paintings My House, My Parents, and My Journey, all from 1982, are brought together here.

Portraiture, which he began to produce in the early 1980s, is represented by works such as the 1982-1987 watercolors depicting, among other artists, Warhol and Basquiat, the composer Morton Feldman and the poet Allen Ginsberg; his delicate pencil drawing of Ettore Sottsass (1997); the 1997 portrait of his wife and muse Alba, which introduces a new format of horizontal composition that can be also found in the more recent portrait Alba (2024), and, in a further variation, in Portrait of Zoë Kravitz, Saint Laurent Summer 25, Commissioned by Anthony Vaccarello (2025).

References to the turmoil of today's world emerge in paintings such as 5-14-2020 (2020), created during the Covid-19 pandemic. Of the more recent works on display, Winter Flowers in Spring II (2025) reaffirms the artist's conviction that, even in the winter of both the world and life, beauty can blossom and take form.

The exhibition is part of a series of initiatives undertaken for a number of years now by Triennale Milano to promote and showcase the Italian art scene. Under Damiano Gullì, the institution's curator of contemporary art and its public program, talks and projects have been organized with male and female artists of different generations, all known for their ability to move between various disciplines, mediums and techniques.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a bilingual catalogue published in Italian and English by Silvana Editoriale and featuring, in addition to essays by the curators, a salutation to the artist by Barbara Radice, along with a collection of texts by various authors originally published between the 1980s and the present (Edit deAk, Raymond Foye, Jyotindra Jain, Stella Kramrisch, Jhumpa Lahiri, Michael McClure, Francesco Pellizzi, Joachim Pissarro, Salman Rushdie, Ettore Sottsass, Colm Toibin, Emanuele Trevi, Andrei Voznesensky, and Derek Walcott), as well as a conversation between Francesco Clemente and Francesca Pietropaolo.

On the occasion of the exhibition, on June 11 at 7.30 pm, the theater of Triennale Milano will host Albainclemente, a play written and performed by Alba Clemente – the artist’s life partner – featuring Gabriele Gallinari and directed by Guido Torlonia.