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with a text by Philippe Daverio

This is a thematic monograph on the works of Silvio Pasotti dedicated to the bar: from Venice to Padua, from Lake Maggiore to Naples, twenty-eight paintings between 1976 to today on the banquet, lunch, and women expressed in an original and ironic way by this artist from Bergamo.

Silvio Pasotti, born in Bergamo, was educated at the Carrara Academy, directed at the time by Achille Funi. In 1951 he began studying at the Italian Institute for Graphic Art, gaining experience in lithography. Between 1953 and 1957 he spent time working in Spain and France. His first personal show was in Bergamo in 1955; he participated in numerous exhibitions in Italy and other European countries. In 1958 he mixed with a group of architects from Milan and moved his studio to the Torre Velasca.
In the 1960s he began creating public works in collaboration with architects. In 1964 he became acquainted with American pop art and around this time made some of his most allusive and highly imaginative works: the objects of our environment (automobiles, washing machines) were sensitively transformed by multimedia, where metals and paint alternate and merge. Between 1964 and 1965 he created plastic environments as large decorations for the Scuola di San Donato Milanese and the Conference Hall at Sirmione to a design by the architect Virgilio Vercelloni. In 1967 he created murals on moulded aluminium panels for the Council Hall in the Segrate Municipality building; the design is by the architects Achilli, Brigidini, Canella and Lazzari. The following year he executed the large external mosaic for the Pieve Emanuele school to a design by the architects Achilli, Brigidini and Canella. In 1969 he moved to Paris to the studio where the sculptor Deruelle worked and stayed there until 1975; the following year he returned to Milan and began a series of portraits of Lombardy families. During this period he travelled numerous times to New York, San Francisco and Egypt, drawing inspiration for his works. In 1982 he created, for the Electa publishing house, a gallery of thirty portraits of intellectuals and art historians, a collection which then transferred to the Skira publishing company. In 1987 he executed a large painting on wood with neon (1000 x 300 cm) for the American Conturella. In 1988 he travelled to Sardinia and created a series of ceramics (plates and vases), which gave him experience in modelling and that led to a series of sculptures dealing with Ferrari automobiles. On the death of Enzo Ferrari the artist began creating sculptures and paintings on the magical theme of Maranello automobiles; the large painting on the legend of this automobile house is the central theme of this series. And in 1994 saga and narration were the deep core of a new series of works, which drew close to a theme that can be found throughout Pasotti’s oeuvre: in Milan he presented an existential “erotic” exhibition, in which the distant memory of pop art is transfigured in sexual symbols of explosive vitality. He currently lives and works in Milan and in Massimo Visconti on Lake Maggiore.

Milan, Spazio Krizia
from 3 to 11 November 2004

 

The book is available at the Skira bookstore in via Torino 61 in Milan and from October 2004 in all Italian bookstores.