Alberto Sughi The Drawing and the Image, Arezzo April 06

PRESS RELEASE

The Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Arezzo, patronised by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, will be holding a large retrospective exhibition of works by Alberto Sughi, one of the greatest Italian artists from the second half the twentieth century, from April 14 to May 21, 2006. From his first exhibition, with Corrado Cagli and Marcello Muccini at the Il Pincio Gallery in 1954, Rome, to his contributions to the Biennale exhibition in Venice and the Quadriennale in Rome (of which he has also been Chairman), to the large retrospective exhibitions held in various Museums in Italy, Europe and America, his artistic development has always been sustained by public acclaim and by support from the most qualified art critics.

"Alberto Sughi: The Drawing and the Image” gathers together 50 works (all on paper over canvas) deriving from private collections as well as the artist’s own collection. The exhibition has been organised by the art historian Giovanni Faccenda and sponsored by the Spagnoli Gallery in Florence under the patronage of the Cultural Heritage Office of the city of Arezzo.

The exhibition catalogue (from which the following extracts have been taken) contains reviews by Giovanni Faccenda, Luigi Cavallo and an interview with the artist by Sergio Zavoli.

Luigi Cavallo : "The artist’s world is dense in hidden plots. In this recent group of works, the canvas is crossed by tremblings and insistences, his brushstrokes emptying and refilling the climate of tension that develops between the figures: the faces of whom are part human, part theatrical mask, in an interpretation that is both classical expression and modern icon. The subjects both offer and hide themselves, withdrawing into their own valves of mystery."

Giovanni Faccenda : "Curiosity makes us wonder how much autobiographical material there is in these works, expressing the texture of reality as the verse of existence. This aspect is marginalised by scenes that are themselves enigmatic, as if sealed in a glass cruet, whose veiled transparency recognizes an implicit refusal of every artifice or substitute. The regular recurrence of the portrayal of symbolic elements (mirror, mask, dog, phone call…) is more obviously intriguing, expressing a dense allegory of intuitions and mysterious premonitions, in which you can just distinguish weary strains of jazz music, the refined fragrances of citrus fruit and lavender, the unmistakable smell of burnt tobacco on the surface of whiskey or brandy glasses. Rooms containing figures like sand, an hour glass. The effect is remarkable. Sughi’s creative commitment during these months has, in fact, given us aristocratic, significant and exhaustive results."

Sergio Zavoli : "Although your pictures generally have a strong figurative basis, they have also been praised for their assonances, connections, atmospheres recalling other forms of expression, deriving from other art forms such as the cinema. The world of Antonioni, for example - founded upon the bourgeois, uneasy and mutual inaccessibility of relationships between people - or of Scola, almost a socio-analyst, who transforms facial expressions into introspection, between psychology and reality, poetry and document, or of Fellini, who was the first to call your work "the art of image, in the sense of both the single frame and the story".

Translation by Joelle Mary Crowle

Opening hours: Tuesday - Friday 10-13/15-18, Saturday - Sunday 10-18 (closed Mondays). Entrance fee: € 6, reduced € 3. Info: 0575.377506-509. Press office: Catola & Partners , via degli Artisti 15B, 50132 Firenze, 055.5522867-892, r.catola@flashnet.it

You can find more information on Alberto Sughi at www.albertosughi.com


	organised by Giovanni Faccenda Arezzo Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea 14 April - 21 May 2006
PRESS RELEASE The Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Arezzo, patronised by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, will be holding a large retrospective exhibition of works by Alberto Sughi, one of the greatest Italian artists from the second half the twentieth century, from April 14 to May 21, 2006. From his first exhibition, with Corrado Cagli and Marcello Muccini at the Il Pincio Gallery in 1954, Rome, to his contributions to the Biennale exhibition in Venice and the Quadriennale in Rome (of which he has also been Chairman), to the large retrospective exhibitions held in various Museums in Italy, Europe and America, his artistic development has always been sustained by public acclaim and by support from the most qualified art critics. *"Alberto Sughi: The Drawing and the Image”* gathers together 50 works (all on paper over canvas) deriving from private collections as well as the artist’s own collection. The exhibition has been organised by the art historian Giovanni Faccenda and sponsored by the Spagnoli Gallery in Florence under the patronage of the Cultural Heritage Office of the city of Arezzo. The exhibition catalogue (from which the following extracts have been taken) contains reviews by Giovanni Faccenda, Luigi Cavallo and an interview with the artist by Sergio Zavoli. Luigi Cavallo : "The artist’s world is dense in hidden plots. In this recent group of works, the canvas is crossed by tremblings and insistences, his brushstrokes emptying and refilling the climate of tension that develops between the figures: the faces of whom are part human, part theatrical mask, in an interpretation that is both classical expression and modern icon. The subjects both offer and hide themselves, withdrawing into their own valves of mystery." Giovanni Faccenda : "Curiosity makes us wonder how much autobiographical material there is in these works, expressing the texture of reality as the verse of existence. This aspect is marginalised by scenes that are themselves enigmatic, as if sealed in a glass cruet, whose veiled transparency recognizes an implicit refusal of every artifice or substitute. The regular recurrence of the portrayal of symbolic elements (mirror, mask, dog, phone call…) is more obviously intriguing, expressing a dense allegory of intuitions and mysterious premonitions, in which you can just distinguish weary strains of jazz music, the refined fragrances of citrus fruit and lavender, the unmistakable smell of burnt tobacco on the surface of whiskey or brandy glasses. Rooms containing figures like sand, an hour glass. The effect is remarkable. Sughi’s creative commitment during these months has, in fact, given us aristocratic, significant and exhaustive results." Sergio Zavoli : "Although your pictures generally have a strong figurative basis, they have also been praised for their assonances, connections, atmospheres recalling other forms of expression, deriving from other art forms such as the cinema. The world of Antonioni, for example - founded upon the bourgeois, uneasy and mutual inaccessibility of relationships between people - or of Scola, almost a socio-analyst, who transforms facial expressions into introspection, between psychology and reality, poetry and document, or of Fellini, who was the first to call your work "the art of image, in the sense of both the single frame and the story". Translation by Joelle Mary Crowle Opening hours: Tuesday - Friday 10-13/15-18, Saturday - Sunday 10-18 (closed Mondays). Entrance fee: € 6, reduced € 3. Info: 0575.377506-509. Press office: Catola & Partners , via degli Artisti 15B, 50132 Firenze, 055.5522867-892, r.catola@flashnet.it You can find more information on Alberto Sughi at www.albertosughi.com

Italiano


The exhibition has been sponsored by the Galleria Spagnoli in Florence
www.galleriaspagnoli.it