Reserve

It was the year 1978, when the critic Achille Bonito Oliva defined the group of Italian artists comprising Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria and Mimmo Paladino as Transavanguardia. From that moment the term became "official" and defined a movement that, in a very short time, became internationally well-known.
"Transavanguardia – wrote Bonito Oliva, summarising the spirit of the movement – means opening up to the deliberate set-back of Western culture’s logo-centrism, and moving towards a pragmatism that gives space to a work’s instinctual drive".
The book illustrates the individual development of all the protagonists of the Transavanguardia movement (Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, Mimmo Paladino) through a selection of about eighty works from Alessandro Grassi’s collection, which has been held in trust by the Mart of Rovereto since 2002. Established internationally at the end of the 1970s, the artists of the Transavanguardia movement propose a return to painting and sculpture, re-establishing the pictorial tradition through reference, at times ironic and at other times aggressive, in order to affirm the freedom of returning to the artistic "tradition". This contemporary reappraisal of figuration and lyrical abstraction is developed through careful reflection on the experiences of historic, twentieth-century, avant-garde movements.
The paintings of the Grassi collection are works in which a return to the pictorial tradition overwhelms the more abstract and conceptual ideas which characterized artistic exploration throughout the 1970s. Grassi, in his choice of works, was deeply tied to colour and guided by the heart; he chose works spontaneously according to his interpretation of the significance of collecting, which must be – he stated – "made simply and without frippery".
The collection is a carefully articulated itinerary covering works from the final years of the 1970s, dotted with some historic masterpieces such as Bar Tintoretto by Chia, Semi (1978) by Clemente, Eroe del mare Adriatico centrale (1977-1980) by Cucchi, Musica occhi (from 1978-1979) by De Maria and I diavoli (1979) by Paladino. There are, in addition, works produced between 1978 and 2001 and a series of drawings by Cucchi and Paladino from 1979 and 1986 respectively – testimony to Grassi’s passionate interest in these artists – and a last purchase made in 1990: Poesia notturna dentro il regno dei fiori by Nicola De Maria.

Rovereto, Mart
15 May – 5 September 2004

 

The official catalogue is available at the exhibition bookshop and at the Skira bookstore in via Torino 61 in Milan and from May 2004 in all Italian bookstores.