While
working for the art gallery Fratelli Pozzo, Ezio Gribaudo, who was
born in Turin in 1929, met almost every great artist of the 1960s and
1970s. With his outgoing, dynamic personality, he persuaded
financiers to support avant-garde exhibits, and, an artist himself,
he forged lifelong friendships with the artists. In charge of
publishing exhibition catalogues, Gribaudo often received gifts of
the artists’ works. His unique private collection as well as his
own paintings-which he exhibited at the 1966 Venice Biennale and
again this year at the age of 81-are being showcased at the
exhibition, Ezio Gribaudo: Voyage through Memory, currently running
in Lucca.
The
exhibition begins with a wall of delicate de Chirico drawings.
Gribaudo’s tenacious promotion helped revive that artist’s
languishing career in the 1950s. The second room of paintings
provides a compressed compendium of works by twentieth-century
masters you won’t easily see again, including Savinio’s Le
Navire Perdu,
similar to the work of his better-known brother, de Chirico, but with
less angst. Also in this room, Pierre Alechinsky’s Corps
guéris complètement par la médication naturelle is unforgettable, not only for its title.
Gribaudo’s
own art is a discovery. The Flani and Logogrifi,
products of self-invented techniques involving printing plates,
blotting and polystyrene, are stark, orderly and icy white. These are
in total contrast to the Teatro
della Memoria,
a series of collages in which misty colors veil mythical animals and
archaic symbols-the paraphernalia of his subconscious.
Lu.C.C.A
Center of Contemporary Art
via
della Fratta 36, Lucca
Until
August 28, 2011: Ezio Gribaudo: Viaggi della Memoria Miró, Savino,
de Chirico, Fontana, La Biennale di Venezia e i Teatri Senza Tempo
del 1966. For details, see www.luccamuseum.com.
