NYAB Event - Turi Simeti “Zero Gravity”

Turi Simeti “Zero Gravity”

Rosai Ugolini Modern

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Rosai Ugolini Modern presents “Zero Gravity”, a solo exhibition by Turi Simeti. Continuing its program of showcasing preeminent Italian art, the gallery’s third exhibition is dedicated to a cornerstone of the European Minimalist movement. With works spanning from the Sixties to the present, the show represents the first New York retrospective of Simeti’s monochromatic shaped canvases.

Since his earliest works, Simeti disturbed the placid regularity of the canvas’s surface through the application of elements in relief that act as a support for three-dimensionality. His cohesive, aesthetic-formal research brought him to the rigorous choice of monochromatism, and to modulate both the surface and shape of the canvas. By inserting oval (and later, circular) forms into the back of the canvas, Simeti succeeds in articulating the plasticity of the work and determines its pictorial elements. The artist renders visible a series of lights and shadows contained within the intensity of color, a sign of a vivid presence on the canvas’s flexed surface. In one of the exhibition’s historical pieces, Un ovale verde, executed in 1967, a prominent oval accentuates the acrylic’s light and objectifies the shadows, transforming them from ephemeral projections.

Simeti orchestrates successions of elliptical forms with impeccable modularity. Some of the forms emerge delicately from the fullness of color, hinting at a myriad of tones, such as in the work Un ovale nero from 1973, where the imperceptible oval shape tacitly glides on a black surface. Others come forth from the canvas, expanding and multiplying as in the 2013 piece Otto ovali bianchi; Here, the emerging and plunging cadence of the ovals becomes a continuum of autonomous yet related elements, each illuminating the other by way of their own three-dimensionality. Elliptical geometries gravitate in Simeti’s system of composition: the color expands and the canvas embraces an ethereal concreteness. Suspended, the forms attempt to liberate themselves from the space created by their own presence. In the 1989 work Superficie blu con tondo, the tactile evanescence of an imposing circular shape looms on the surface with a tense and insoluble calm. By their very nature, the archetypical forms of the circle and ellipse bring his works closer to a timeless dimension, beckoning them towards the eternal.

After passing his youth in Sicily, Simeti moved to Rome at 30 years old. There he frequented the studio of Alberto Burri, whose influence would determine his first artistic productions composed of multi-material works and combustions. Simeti’s artistic language already defined itself in the early 60’s with monochromatic works, the characteristic element of which was relief; In particular, the geometric form of the ellipse would become a keystone of his work for decades to come. His public exhibition activity began in 1963 at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome and at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence the following year.

Simeti moved to Milan in 1965 and was invited to participate in the historic group show, “Zero Avantgarde” mounted at Lucio Fontana’s studio along with Piero Manzoni, Günther Uecker, Yves Klein and Yayoi Kusama, among others. The show then travelled to Galleria Il Punto, Turin and Galleria Il Cavallino, Venice. Also in 1965, he realized his first solo show at Galerie Wulfengasse, in Klagenfurt, Germany. Important solo and group exhibitions would follow in major Italian galleries, as well as throughout Europe, often alongside other icons of Italian art of the 60’s such as Enrico Castellani, Agostino Bonalumi, Dadamaino, and Paolo Scheggi. Beginning in 1980, and for many years after, he divided his time between Milan and Rio de Janeiro, thus bringing widespread recognition to his work in South America. In 2009, Simeti was invited to exhibit at the 53rd Venice Biennale with a solo show.

His works are present in prestigious museums throughout the world including, MAM, Rio de Janeiro; Palazzo Reale, Milan; Museion, Bolzano; Wilhelm-Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen; Villa Croce, Genoa; Mittelrhein-Museum, Koblenz; Civica d’Arte Moderna, Turin; Kunsthalle, Bern; Museum Pfalzgalerie, Kaiserlautern; Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro; Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome. Recent solo exhibitions include: Tornabuoni Art, Paris; De Buck, New York; Stefan Hildebrandt, Saint Moritz; CAMUSAC Museum, Cassino; Almine Rech, Brussels; Volker Diehl, Berlin, and Dep Art, Milan. Simeti lives and works in Milan.