Omar Galliani: Nocturnal
Giving way to the Year of Italian Culture in Uruguay, the Italian Embassy, the Italian Institute for Culture and Fundación Pablo Atchugarry, are pleased to present the art show “Nocturnal” by the contemporary Italian artist Omar Galliani.
Omar Galliani is since many years a central figure of the Italian artistic landscape, not only for having been one of the first to adhere in the 1980s to the movement of the “new figuration”, but for having developed a unique working technique that has taken him to exhibit in many countries of the world.
Revisiting art history, Omar Galliani was always taken instinctively to favor drawing and the composition with respect to the force of color, that in his works is always maintained as a backdrop. The supremacy of drawing is for him, with respect to the use of color, a sort of procedure to be used as “expressive medium”, subdued to the compositional form and the pleasure of contemplation.
Galliani’s works are a praise to the three kingdoms: mineral (graphite), vegetal (poplar), animal (human anatomy). The slow sedimentation of graphite creates the images, states of being that owe their own identity as the signs over the veins of the wood or the porosity of the paper. In a particular manner, the wood of the poplar is a material that is alive, it expands or contracts according to the weather, submitting itself to a slow but gradual yellowing that year by year highlights the passing of time. The base becomes part of the creation, of an ensuing tireless demiurge that proceeds there where the intervention of the artist has stopped, of course resolute, but never absolute. Graphite, considered by the artist as a “deep geology”, generates the sidereal depths of the images, faces and bodies that are like planets, constellations capable of absorbing and distilling the obscure brilliance of the mine. Probably one great observatory would not be enough to observe all those anatomies that only from afar can be identified in a woman – auroral soul, “original biology which we belong to”.
Biography of Omar Galliani
Born in 1954 in Montecchio Emilia, where he lives and works, Omar Galliani has studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and teaches painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara. In the early eighties he was a leading exponent of the group of Anachronisms and the Magic Head. He has participated in three editions of the Venice Biennale and in that of 1984 had a solo in the "Art in the mirror." Also in the eighties he participated in the Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil and at the XII Biennial of Paris. He has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, at the Hayward Gallery in London, two editions of the Quadrennial in Rome at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Bologna, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, and those in Frankfurt and Berlin.
In the nineties his work was exhibited at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts of Arizona, the Marian Locks Gallery Philadelphia Herstand Arnold and New York. The artist has also presented Feminine Countenances at New York University and in 2000 the Golden Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He exhibited at the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, the Galleria Civica of Modena, at the Museum of Modern Art in Budapest, at the Palacio Foz in Lisbon, at the PAC in Milan.
In 2003 he was invited at the Prague Biennale and the first edition of that of Beijing, where he won first prize with three major works of the cycle New anatomies. In 2005, the State Archives of Turin in the Italian Grand Design show, one of his drawings (5 x 6.3 meters), graphite on Poplar, has been confronted with the face of the angel of Leonardo’s preparatory The Virgin of the rocks exposed at the Royal Library. A Palazzo Magnani in Reggio Emilia has presented a solo New anatomies. In 2005 the Museum of Contemporary Art in Guadalajara (Mexico) has opened a solo titled New flowers new saints and Space Mazzotta in Milan presented the daughter was naked. Since 2006, a solo shot titled Italian Design in China the most important museums of modern and contemporary art, from Shanghai, Chengdu, Jinan, Xian, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Nanjing, Dalian, Tianjin, Beijing Capital Museum , and concluded the tour at the end of 2008 in Hong Kong in the prestigious art gallery, Schoeni Art Gallery. Also in 2006 the University and the Museum of Caracas hosted by the way his personal drawings, which in April 2007 was brought to the Museum of Hassan in Rabat. The Big Picture Italian, the great work on display in Turin in 2005, was then presented at the Palazzo della Permanente in Milan as part of the exhibition Beauty in 2006, then to Verona, Palazzo della Ragione, the exposure in the seventh splendor. In June 2007 he inaugurated the exhibition Between East and West. Omar Galliani and the Italian Grand Design in China at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, sandwiched between the side events of the 52nd Venice Biennale. The event, organized under the auspices of the Chinese Embassy in Italy, in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Government of the People’s Republic of China, will see the presence of the Association of Chinese Artists and the collaboration of museums in Shanghai , Ningbo, Dalian, Xian, Hanghzou, Jinan, Chengdu and Wuhan. In April 2009 Christian Mermoud opens to a personal gallery "Art-Angle Attitude Led Design" in Saint Paul de Vance, opens July 31 in Saint Paul de Vance always a new space "Angle Art and Design", in and stay open "Galliani Space" which collects his works constantly. The gallery "k 35" opens in Moscow a solo from May to July with a new cycle of works. The Foundation Michetti in Francavilla al Mare dedicates a major retrospective, Allemandi catalog. In May and throughout the summer, the gallery "Shangheie" Shanghai sets up a personal "Far from Xian." Also on those dates in Vienna the Italian Cultural Institute hosts a solo in their own spaces, in Lucca in Villa Bottini and the Archaeological Museum of Palazzo Guinigi presents "From the rooms of my drawings." In 2009, Venice is also in the collective Dètournemen " in the old Hospice of St. Lawrence - a fringe event at the 53 Biennale - and Andy Warhol-Omar Galliani, housed in the Cloister of Saint Apollonia. In October, Deo Art Gallery devotes a large retrospective tribute. The Metropol Museum of Contemporary Art of Saint Etienne, France, invites him to exhibit. From the Box of my Drawings, 45 medium and large sized works of art, curated by Lòrànd Hegyi. In 2010 he begun a tour of South American exhibits, that allowed him to show his work in Bogotá, Buenos Aires at the Borges Cultural Center, at the San Juan Conte Grand Cultural Center and now in Uruguay.
“Nocturnal” at Fundación Pablo Atchugarry will stay open to the public until the 29th of February, 2012.
Organizes: Fundación Pablo Atchugarry, Italian Institute of Culture and Italian Embassy.
Curator: Massimo Scaringella