In the magnificent setting of Maggiore g.a.m. Project Room in Venice, in synergy with Giorgio Morandi Library founded by Franco and Roberta Calarota inside the institutional reality of ACP - Palazzo Franchetti, this exhibition highlights Giorgio Morandi's most authentic research through the lens of works on paper, including his etchings, considered one of the major aspects of his art. Etchings, drawings and watercolors become silent but powerful revealers of one of the benchmarks of Morandi's poetics: suggesting an entire poetic universe through a studied economy of subjects as well as of signs. Focusing on this aspect means giving significance to a technique to which Morandi dedicated himself throughout all his career, considering it as essential as his oil paintings production. The exhibition explores the main themes that characterized his artworks: the landscapes of his hometown, the refined flower vases and, above all, the still lives that accompanied him during his entire existance, always finding the perfect balance between delicate signs and intense effects of light and shade.
Next to the valuable books available for consultation at Giorgio Morandi Library - a place to explore Giorgio Morandi's poetics in a transversal and current way - within the magnificent setting of ACP - Palazzo Franchetti in Venice, the exhibition Giorgio Morandi. The balance of signs opens its doors, aimed to highlight the most authentic research of the Master. Etchings, drawings and watercolors become silent but powerful revealers of one of the benchmarks of Morandi's poetics: suggesting an entire poetic universe through a studied economy of subjects as well as of signs. It is in these works that the evocative ability of Morandi's intimate and meditated world emerges in its essentiality: the etchings show the chromatic play limited to the contrast between the engraved sign and paper, between the hatching and the spaced deliberately left white in the composition; the drawings show how the pencil leaves its imprint always light and fast yet eternal; the watercolors show how just the colour is capable of defining shapes, volumes and spaces.
Thanks to the collaboration of ACP - Art Capital Partners with Galleria d'Arte Maggiore g.a.m. - which has been involved in promoting Morandi internationally since its establishment in 1978 - the exhibition explores the engraving technique that has always been the heart of his artistic research. The Master started to dedicate himself to etchings since 1910-11, developing that language and those themes that followed him throughout all his life. Despite the economy of his subjects, the still lives and the landscapes which characterize his artistic path distinguish themselves for the incessant variability of their expressive strength. His aim was to explore in depth all the possible formal balances and tone variations that the different grades of chiaroscuro can create, reaching various and excellent results. It is no accident that Morandi is considered one of the greatest engravers of the XXth Century and that in 1930 he became Professor of Engraving Techniques at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. His lessons continued till 1956.
Morandi never subordinated engraving art to painting. Since the Venice Biennale of 1928, the first one in which he took part in, Morandi has always selected his etchings in order to present his research to the Biennale's international public. Over the years, the results he obtained continue to be sublime and his desire to deeply investigate objects and places around him never stopped. This means analyzing how to modify tonal shades, how to calculate the hatching weaving and testing every time different compositions based on bright reflections. Thanks to his incredible know-how and mastery, Morandi was awarded in 1953 the international recognition of the Grand Prize for the Engraving at the Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil.
