Sergio Lombardo. Faces

When: November 12, 2021 - January 23, 2022
this event is ended

Place: Arezzo, Le Nuove Stanze
Region: Toscana

Contemporary art Art Exhibitions in Arezzo

Sergio Lombardo (Rome, 1939), one of the most important Italian avant-garde artists, presents at Le Nuove Stanze, in collaboration with Mainz publisher and 1 / 9unosunove contemporary art, a selection of unpublished pictorial works, deriving from his recent research on the so-called “Stochastic faces” (2021).

These large works on canvas (210 x 150 cm) represent the latest result of the in-depth study that Lombardo has been carrying out since the early 1980s on the so-called “stochastic painting”. In these four decades the artist has invented numerous algorithms for the creation of stochastic forms, and precisely through the application of one of these (the V-RAN method, also called "rain of points") what he himself defines unpredictable stochastic faces.

Lombardo starts from three minimal prototypes of geometrized faces (neutral and devoid of any expression) which, from generation to generation, always undergo new random deformations, to the point of transforming faces into something monstrous and perturbing. Any deformation, however, arises from chance: keeping faith with the principle of expressive abstinence - which has informed his entire career, from the beginning to the end of the 1950s - Lombardo does not intervene with arbitrary choices to look for more or less "beautiful" or " ugly ”, but relies on numbers drawn at random.

His aim is not to imitate real faces, but to create unpredictable, meaningless, non-existent in nature and out of scale faces. The result aims to be extraneous to human imagination and reality, to stimulate in the observer a process of projective perception based on the elaboration of interpretations that depend on his personal individual experience.

Like all of Lombardo's previous works - including the canvases of the Hazard series (2019-20), three of which are presented on display for the first time - these painted faces (both in black and white and in color) are also effective. because they are able to evoke the greatest number of different unconscious interpretations. In fact, if the faces ended up imitating realistic expressions, they would inhibit the observer's arbitrary projections and would oblige him to always take refuge in very similar interpretations, contravening one of the cardinal principles of eventualism, an aesthetic theory of which Lombardo was the founder and continues to be the main exponent. Also on display is the Quilting folder (2019, Mainz), with three serigraphs by Lombardo.... read the rest of the article»

The exhibition will be accompanied by a precious volume published by Mainz (which is also working on a collection of the artist's writings, in the process of being published) with an unpublished text by Sergio Lombardo and an essay by Simone Zacchini.

Biographical notes: Sergio Lombardo

Le Nuove Stanze is a cultural association founded with the aim of promoting contemporary art projects and at the same time involving various interlocutors, critics, historians and scholars but also art enthusiasts and a wider audience made up of schoolchildren.

Alongside the conception and production of contemporary art exhibitions, Le Nuove Stanze also organizes debates, conferences, book presentations and workshops, along with educational activities, as well as publishing volumes and catalogs in line with the projects developed. Dialogue and collaboration between different institutions, artists and professionals is the aim pursued by the association in order to disseminate contemporary art events, with particular attention to their link with the territory. Le Nuove Stanze is made up of a Board of Directors composed of Chiara Sarteanesi (curator of the Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri Foundation), Marco Pierini (director of the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia and curator of contemporary art) and Moira Chiavarini (president of the association, art historian and editor).

A scientific committee within the Association, and elected by it, evaluates and proposes every initiative in line with the objectives and purposes of the New Rooms. Under the direction of Marco Pierini, there is the presence of Alessandro Sarteanesi (director of the publishing house Mainz, photographer and curator of exhibitions), Alberto Fiz (scholar, critic and curator of contemporary art), Tanino Bonifacio (art historian and also councilor to the culture of the Municipality of Gibellina, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Gibellina), Chiara Donelli (professor of the University of Parma), Simone Zacchini (curator and art historian), Piero Tomassoni (curator of contemporary art who works between London, Abu Dhabi and Italy, international consultant for museum projects in the Middle East), Barbara de Magistris (Senior Retail Manager, supporter of important projects and many artists, who has always combined the world of business and finance to that of art).

The exhibitions of: Nevio Mengacci (2022), Sean Shanahan (2022), Claudio Parmiggiani (2022) are in preparation at the historic spaces of via Mazzini, in Arezzo.

Title: Sergio Lombardo. Faces

Opening: November 12, 2021

Ending: January 23, 2022

Organization: Le Nuove Stanze

Curator: Simone Zacchini

Place: Arezzo, Le Nuove Stanze

Address: Via Mazzini, 12 - Arezzo

Opening time

Tuesday to Friday from 10.00 to 12.30 and from 15.00 to 19.00 (last admission 18.30)

Saturday and Sunday by appointment

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