Galleria Bianconi is taking part in MiArt 2012 with an exhibition project in the Solo/Double section: a complete solo exhibition of works by Mario Davico, curated by Flaminio Gualdoni, devoted to the artist’s most important public appearance, at the Venice Biennale in 1962.

The Gallery has chosen MiArt for a new, important stage in the work it is doing to give the art world a full understanding of the works of this crucial artist, in order to understand the paths followed by Italian art in the 1950s and 1960s.

Davico had already taken part in the Venice Biennale in 1948, and had made his solo debut in 1950 at Galleria La Bussola in Turin, where he showed a unique geometrical abstraction. This fitted perfectly into the Italian artistic landscape of the time, between the Concrete Art movement and the Astrattismo Classico of Florence, and yet it was totally independent and in carefully nurtured isolation. His work made its mark on other occasions at the Venice Biennale, in 1950 and 1952, as well as in important exhibitions in Italy and abroad, in Turin, Milan, Rome, Florence and Paris. In 1962 came his solo display at the Venice Biennale.
On that occasion, Davico exhibited eight works that revealed a further shift towards a form of painting made of chromatic melodies and essential, and to some extent archetypal, forms.
For this fair, his works will once again come to life in a display that entirely reproduces the artist’s room at the Biennale.

This event is the outcome of the research that Galleria Bianconi has been carrying out into Italian art in the second half of the twentieth century, and into its rediscovery in the contemporary scene. This passionate study has examined some powerful artistic figures who made their mark, and continue to do so today, by offering an autonomous, individual vision even though one that is closely related to that of their day. This research is now inspiring the Gallery’s projects in the world of contemporary art, with an experiment involving Italian and international artists – the third episode of “Click or Clash? Strategies of Collaboration”, curated by Julia Draganović and Omayra Alvarado, with Alexandre Arrechea, Maria Elvira Escallόn and Gian Maria Tosatti is now on in Via Lecco 20, Milan where it will run until 12 May.

“It is extremely rare these days to be able to reconstruct and show an exhibition of the past in its entirety. But as well as being important, it is also truly fascinating for it is a climate that once again takes shape before our eyes, a season from the past that belongs to us and that still has much to say to us,” says Renata Bianconi.
These paintings by Davico tell us of a time when painting was a matter of love, passion and an exclusive choice that was authentically one of life. They take us back to a moment when, as Davico himself put it, the “curved line as an eminently organic natural shape” was fully a part of the discipline of abstraction.

At the Fair:
Mario Davico at the 1962 Biennale, curated by Flaminio Gualdoni
12 April preview
13/14 April from 12 noon to 8 p.m.
15 April from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
MiArt, Solo/Double Section
Entrance: Viale Scarampo, Gate 5, Hall 3
Stand B44

In the Gallery:
Click or Clash? Strategies of Collaboration. Third Stage
Alexandre Arrechea, Maria Elvira Escallόn, Gian Maria Tosatti
Curated by Omayra Alvarado and Julia Draganović
until 12 May
Galleria Bianconi, Via Lecco 20, Milano