Museo d'Arte, Piazzetta dei Serviti 1, 6850 Mendrisio
Enrico Castellani (1930-2017), one of the greatest exponents of the art scene of the second half of the 20th century, worked all his life on his own idea of the representation of space on canvas, achieving such results that he became one of the leading figures in art at an international level.
To date, however, no Swiss museum had ever dedicated a solo exhibition to him. This one at the Museo d'arte Mendrisio is not only his first exhibition on Swiss soil, but also the first retrospective since the artist's death.
The intention of this exhibition is to offer a comprehensive view of Castellani's extraordinary career, from the late 1940s to the first decade of the 21st century. In a purely chronological progression, which allows us to grasp the different phases of his research path, the rooms are characterised by nuclei of works that share similar peculiarities albeit in the extreme variety of their outcomes.
Space, time, variation, repetition: in an infinite scale of combinations, Castellani's monochrome surfaces erase the classical idea of representation to open up new channels of perception: his visual alphabet speaks the language of light, his surfaces, as he himself wrote in 1961, "no longer being part of the domain of painting or sculpture, and being able to take on the character of monumentality of architecture or to resize its space, are the reflection of that total interior space, devoid of contradictions, to which we tend.
And therefore they exist, as objects of instantaneous assimilation, the duration of an act of communication; before time confines them in their material precariousness'.
To date, however, no Swiss museum had ever dedicated a solo exhibition to him. This one at the Museo d'arte Mendrisio is not only his first exhibition on Swiss soil, but also the first retrospective since the artist's death.
The intention of this exhibition is to offer a comprehensive view of Castellani's extraordinary career, from the late 1940s to the first decade of the 21st century. In a purely chronological progression, which allows us to grasp the different phases of his research path, the rooms are characterised by nuclei of works that share similar peculiarities albeit in the extreme variety of their outcomes.
Space, time, variation, repetition: in an infinite scale of combinations, Castellani's monochrome surfaces erase the classical idea of representation to open up new channels of perception: his visual alphabet speaks the language of light, his surfaces, as he himself wrote in 1961, "no longer being part of the domain of painting or sculpture, and being able to take on the character of monumentality of architecture or to resize its space, are the reflection of that total interior space, devoid of contradictions, to which we tend.
And therefore they exist, as objects of instantaneous assimilation, the duration of an act of communication; before time confines them in their material precariousness'.