VENICE.- "From Italy to America and Back is a fitting subtitle for an era of discoveries, rediscoveries and comparisons. It began in the years 1948–49 (with the 24th Venice Biennale and the New York exhibition curated by Barr and Soby) and continued until the mid-1960s, when international art and the art market took a new turn. During the twenty years the exhibition covers (1950–1970), Afro was a key figure and undoubtedly the Italian artist most admired by American collectors." Elisabetta Barisoni
"[Afro's] approach to and assimilation of America and Abstract Expressionism was very much a reflection of his personality; calm, measured and intelligent. Of course, encountering the American painters and seeing their work close up eventually found some expression in his own work, but any intimations of influence were gradual and restrained, and never appeared to engulf his own instinctive creative journey and the sense of himself which he brought to each painting." Edith Devaney
On the occasion of the Biennale Arte 2022,
Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna at Ca' Pesaro hosts Afro 1950-1970. From Italy to America and Back, which highlights Afro Basaldella, one of the leading exponents of Italian painting in the second half of the 20th century.
The exhibition traces a history, still little known, of the connections between Italian and American art, exploring exchanges and collaborations between Afro and artists such as Pollock, De Kooning and Gorky.
Recognized as a central figure in 20th Century international abstract art, Afro commenced his artistic career in Venice then moving to Rome and finally making a mark in the United States following his first visit there in 1950, and soon after becoming the best known and most appreciated Italian artist amongst American collectors.
With the collaboration of Archivio Afro Foundation and the loans of key works from major Italian and international museums, including the masterpieces held at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York and the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, Ca’ Pesaro pays homage to this artist who is also and fittingly well represented in its collection. Bringing these works together will shed new light on the intense relationship that was established between Italian and American art and which saw a union of the European traditions of abstraction with the newly established Abstract Expressionist movement.
Trough 45 works shown with some selected drawings, significant archival materials and original videos, the International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice intends to present the crucial years of Afro’s production, when the artist is in close contact with the American world, an exposure which contributed to the full development of his own clear and distinct visual language, which unites the intimate assimilation of Venetian painting and tonal color to influences from synthetic cubism and abstract art.
Afro’s production from 1950 until 1970 is accompanied by emblematical links to Italian and American art scene, suggested through works, letters and photographs. In 1949 he was selected to participate in the renowned Twentieth Century Italian Art exhibition held in 1949 at the MoMA and in 1950 he was invited for the first time by Catherine Viviano's gallery in New York, the American gallery that later hosted numerous solo exhibitions of his work until 1968. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Afro was a tireless explorer of European and American visual culture: many American artists arrive in Rome, such as Cy Twombly, Philip Guston, Robert Rauschenberg, Conrad Marca-Relli, Sebastiàn Matta and Willem de Kooning, to whom Afro lends his studio in 1959. Within these, it is highly noteworthy the spiritual connection with Arshile Gorky, present in the show with the stunning Untitled, 1944 on loan from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, as well as Afro’s friendship with Willem De Kooning, exhibited at Ca’ Pesaro with two precious works from 1960’.
Afro's work thus becomes, in the monumental rooms on the second floor of Ca’ Pesaro, a great tale, poetic and powerful, intimate and at the same time universal. Where memory and history are enriched with the artist’s humanity; all underpinned by a consummate and dexterous skill and an enduring love of painting.
