Lorenzelli Arte is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition dedicated to Osvaldo Licini, the great artist from Le Marche region of Italy of which the gallery has always been a reference point from the first exhibition in 1961. Given that one of the principle characteristics of the activity of Lorenzelli Arte is that of working with sophisticated outdated-ness, with an eye toward surprise, and what could be more outdated than an Osvaldo Licini exhibition? Licini who had always been difficult to pin down, impossible to pigeon-hole into the little cages of critical reading, both for his working modality and the results of his artistic odyssey.
The collection, that is opening on November 25th. and that will remain up until January 30th. 2016, is principally concerned with the artist's drawings accompanied by some paintings that exhaustively complete the exhibition.
As Roberto Borghi, co-curator along with Matteo Lorenzelli and Giorgio Magnoni, writes in the catalogue: “It is an almost wholly drawing exhibition; many drawings and very few paintings. By following the succession of drawings that traverse the gallery walls one can have an understanding of the origins of the artist's diverse creative cycles; how one engenders another. Some paintings are collocated below this continuous successive line that, in truth, is punctuated by caesuras. They are placed low because it is as if there were the densification of the drives and the intuitions present in the drawings and thus have greater weight.”
The ample selection of drawings, subdivided into cycles, is condensed into a kind of compendium of the artist's work, an artist who knew how not to give in to the monotony of didactic and descriptive storytelling and was able to not indulge in repetition in order to renew himself, always using his immediately recognizable personal language.
These are, in fact, the “footnote pages” that weave the plot of the long story that unites all the moments of his quest, at times apparently and willingly contradictory.
“It is possible to try to follow Licini's artistic journey by closely observing his work, placing his drawings in the forefront, trying to reconstruct, thanks to them, the process of his quest”, this is the thesis expressed by Giorgio Magnoni, a collector and scholar of Licini's work, who had already contributed notably to the 2001 exhibition “Licini secondo noi”.
Furthermore, quoting the critic Giorgio Marchiori, Licini's most constant interlocutor, it can be affirmed that “drawing was the means, expression and investigative instrument; the seismograph, so to speak, of his immediate ideas. Licini used drawing in order to arrive at painting, like the ancients, studying and perfecting compositional schemes, until he created, from his imaginary world, some perfect and definitive archetypes.” On show, in support of this thesis, there will therefore be a series of about 70 drawings and approximately 10 paintings to document a journey that goes from the first abstract pieces, to the fantasy landscapes, to the flying characters vis-à-vis Leopardi, from the Amalasunte to the Angeli ribelli. The exhibition concludes with the drawings that “prepare” and anticipate one of the last masterworks by Licini: “Angelo di santa rosa”, from 1957, also on display.
On the occasion of the exhibition a bilingual catalogue is being published with reproductions of all the work shown in the exhibition, texts by Giorgio Magnoni and Roberto Borghi; and the chronology of Osvaldo Licini curated by Roberto Borghi.
In the second space there is the ongoing Piero Dorazio Il Colore della Pittura exhibition, up since October 1st., that will proceed until January.
