Gianni Realini between art and graphic design

The exhibition is part of a series of thematic in-depth studies of contemporary artists who are linked by birth or by their work to the Canton of Ticino, and presents the first anthological exhibition on Gianni Realini (Sorengo 1943), an artist with a very articulated path. In the 1960s, fascinated by the expressive modes of Andy Warhol’s Pop Art, he declined in a very personal manner, linking it to the human figure and landscape. This artistic moment soon gave way – in the 1970s – to the study of sign and matter, which led to informal aesthetic results, in particular from the fascination with Emilio Vedova. Gianni Realini’s painting thus opened up to a more marked gesturality, his works became larger and more important, the colours intense, without neglecting the contents linked to a new figurativeness. His research continues and always pays great attention to colour, to pigments marked by contrasts, to strong, decisive signs. In fact, he made the transition – with the end of the 1980s – to abstract expressionism, which was increasingly investigated, up to the action painting of Jackson Pollock. After his American journey at the end of the 1990s, Gianni Realini’s artistic gesture became more and more overt and blatant, his canvases or large panels constituting moments of anticipation and fulfilment, the colour applied with force and abundance and dripping.

Gianni Realini graduated from the Cantonal School of Painters in 1960 and attended the advanced course in the painting section of the School Centre for Artistic Industries (CSIA) in Lugano for two years. His teachers include: Pietro Salati, Carlo Cotti, Bruno Morenzoni, Mario Marioni, Manfredo Patocchi, Vinicio Beretta and other well-known personalities from the artistic cultural environment of the time. In the same city, he held his first two exhibitions in 1964 and 1965 (at the ‘Il Nòcciolo’ and ‘Celtica’ galleries). Thanks to a federal scholarship, which he won in 1968, he moved to Paris, where he attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Returning to Ticino in 1969, he resumed his painting and exhibition activities, alongside teaching at the CSIA and frequent study trips to Europe. He has received various prizes and awards and his works are included in many public and private collections.

On display at Spazio Officina – in a chronological span of five decades of creative activity and conceptual research – are some eighty works, including graphics and material canvases in small and large formats. In particular, the artist’s entire graphic production in etching, aquatint, drypoint, of great executive level, is exhibited for the first time.

Exhibition curated by Dalmazio Ambrosioni and Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini.