PRESS RELEASE October 2014
L’UTOPIA DELLA PITTURA Alessandro Pizzo Renato Pengo 10 November – 10 December 2014 Private View: Monday 10 November, 6 – 8pm Moor House, 120 London Wall, City of London EC2Y 5ET
Left: Contrasti Liquidi 10, 2013, enamel on canvas, 90x130cm © Alessandro Pizzo Right: Pagine, 2009 mixed media, 150x100cm © Renato Pengo
ArtMoorHouse is delighted to present L’Utopia Della Pittura, an exhibition of work by two of Italy’s most acclaimed artists, both from Padua, positioning the highly revered and well-established Renato Pengo alongside promising young painter Alessandro Pizzo. The exhibition runs 10 November – 10 December 2014. Despite their diversity of expression, for this show the artists have nurtured a unique synergy and understanding around the content and needs of art in our times, crowded with a wide array of languages aimed exclusively at dramatization. Simultaneously, both artists, diverse in age and technical training, reveal in their work a fundamental leap of vision, which involves feeling, knowing and communicating. This understanding has developed over the past three to four years through continuous dialogue – the works presented in this exhibition are the result of this discourse. Born from an artistic preoccupation that has been a major concern for Renato Pengo for several decades, L’Utopia Della Pittura, ‘The Utopia of Painting’, similarly draws on and aims to unravel brief moments of psycho-sensory consciousness. In the early 1970s, Pengo’s works departed from his academic formation and the existentialistic expressiveness, reaching new ways of experimentation – rigorously cerebral serial structures leading to the almost true essence of colour. TBurnsArts | 18 Bishops Court, 54 Folgate Street, London E1 6UN | 0207 377 5665 | tani@tburnsarts.com
PRESS RELEASE October 2014 The strenuously self-reflective character and the strictly contemporary themes of Pengo's artistic research, which is evident in this exhibition at Moor House in the works of both artists, placed him in a particular position in the Italian and European contemporary art landscape. As we see a shift in more recent years to anthropology and psychoanalysis, the discourse between Pizzo and Pengo can be seen as a development of an already essential command: the expression of a poetry that evolves in the spiritual and imaginary universe, pregnant with vibrations and cosmic energy, in a space that becomes the immaterial void.
Left: Shock Giallo, 1990, oil on canvas, 50x50cm Š Renato Pengo Right: Dopo I percorsi liquidi 3, 2013, enamel on canvas, 100x100cm Š Alessandro Pizzo
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TBurnsArts | 18 Bishops Court, 54 Folgate Street, London E1 6UN | 0207 377 5665 | tani@tburnsarts.com
PRESS RELEASE October 2014
EDITORS NOTES LISTINGS INFORMATION L’Utopia della Pittura A: Moor House 120 London Wall City of London EC2Y 5ETT 020 7993 2721 T 07502211914 E: info@artmoorhouse.com W: www.artmoorhouse.com Dates: 10 November – 10 December 2014 Times: Mon – Fri (1pm - 5pm) or by appointment Sat – Sun (by appointment)
MEDIA ENQUIRIES For further information or images please contact Tani Burns: T: 0207 377 5665 M: 07888 731 419 E: tani@tburnsarts.com W: www.tburnsarts.com
ABOUT ALESSANDRO PIZZO Born 1972, Padua. Alessandro Pizzo began his career as an artist in 2008 and had his first solo exhibition in Padua in 2010. Hi following exhibitions and projects are outlined below: 2011 Adriano Hotel, Rome Castel dell’Ovo, Napoli Participated in the 2nd Biennale in Chianciano (he received 3rd prize for Applied Arts) Participated in the 54th Venice Biennale (selected by Giorgio Grasso) 2012 Rocca Paolina, Perugia Participated in the 1° Premio Effetto Arte competition in Palermo Participated in the 13th Biennale in Casalserugo-Padua Participated in the City of Turin Biennale, Participated in ArteFiera in MassaCarrara Group exhibitions in: Lugano, Switzerland; Paris, France; Berlin, Germany. Solo exhibition at the Galleria ImmagineColore in Genoa. 2013 Solo exhibition as part of the 1st Biennale in Palermo. 2014 Crypt Gallery of St Pancras Church, London. Presented the "Loving Art" series with a live performance at the Cappella Sconsacrata degli Orsini, Rome Solo exhibition at the YCPA in Punta Ala, Grosseto. 2015 International Biennial in London. www.alessandropizzo.it
TBurnsArts | 18 Bishops Court, 54 Folgate Street, London E1 6UN | 0207 377 5665 | tani@tburnsarts.com
PRESS RELEASE October 2014 ABOUT RENATO PENGO Born 1943, Padua. Renato Pengo is an Italian artist working in the disciplines of painting, photography, video, installantion and performance. In 1975 he was among the founders of the artistic group Azionecritica, whose artistic activities, such as performances and murales, are carried out in many neighborhoods in Padua, together with the Odin Teatret of Eugenio Barba. Following his study at the Arts Institute at Padua, Pengo was introduced by the renowned Italian poet and writer Diego Valeri to the Traghetto Gallery in Venice, where he held his first major solo show. Other important solo exhibitions and projects are outlined below: 1969 Il Giorno, Milan La Chiocciola, Padua 1975 X Quadriennale, Rome 1976 Annual exhibition of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Venice. 1970s Romanischer Keller Gallery, Salzburg An Der Stadtmauer, Villach Accademia dei Concordi, Rovigo International Exhibition of New Tendencies, Prato Stevens Gallery, Padova 1980s Palazzo Massari, Ferrara Italian Institute of Culture, Amsterdam Gallery Van Voorst Van Beest, The Hague Stevens Gallery, Padua Catodica, Rome Ifduif, Lugano Le arti del cinema, Verona Festival Mondial do Minuto in Sao Paulo, Brasil Turin Film Festival, Italy 1999 Palazzo del Monte di Pieta, Padua 2000 Pengo created a video manifesto that gave birth to a pre-linguistic and non-readable writing, consisting of figurative signs and fugitive words. Two important cycles belong to this period : "Oltre il Titolo" and "Maree", exhibited in Padua (the Dante Vecchiato Gallery), Florence (Palazzo Vecchio), Arezzo (Sala dei Grandi) and Ancona (Mole Vanvitelliana). 2002 An important work by Pengo was acquired by the Museo d'arte dello Splendore in Giulianova. 2004 Multimedia installation displayed in the house of Piero Della Francesca at Sansepolcro. 2008 "Traghettare il tempo" – National Museums at Villa Pisani, Stra "Oltre" – Net Center, Padua "Oltre l'immagine" – Civic Museum at Piazza del Santo, Padua 2012 " SHOCK" – Musei Civici agli Eremitani, Padova
TBurnsArts | 18 Bishops Court, 54 Folgate Street, London E1 6UN | 0207 377 5665 | tani@tburnsarts.com