PINO PASCALI FOUNDATION
Marco Neri
About Her
curated by Giuseppe Teofilo
The Pino Pascali Foundation is pleased to announce the major solo exhibition of Marco Neri titled About Her.
The exhibition will open on May 18 at 6 PM and will showcase Marco Neri’s (Forlì, 1968) extensive body of work under the title About Her, curated by the director Giuseppe Teofilo. The “Her” evoked in the title refers to “Painting.” The event spans forty years of the Romagnolo artist’s career; the exhibition “moves from one extreme to another in its path because fundamentally I love everything – about Her – that is, about Painting, in every aspect,” declares the artist.
“A contention between figuration and abstraction is out of the question today, in light of the reflections on representation throughout the 20th century, but if there existed a very thin and fragile boundary, a pure theoretical geometry and a univocal image of the things of the world, Marco Neri’s work would mark it between the parts,” writes the curator Giuseppe Teofilo in the introduction to the catalog – Electa. “In front of the artist’s works, the viewer is dragged into a ‘system of compulsory participation’ capable of triggering the perception of the construction of the landscape. Marco Neri is one of the most important painters working in Italy today.” The exhibition also initiates a thematic exploration of a group of artists who have chosen Puglia, its land, light, and the “reflection” in the sea as their place of work and research.
“Marco Neri’s investigation,” highlights critic Roberto Lacarbonara in his text along with the critical contribution of Davide Ferri, “has always placed the gaze at the center of the work. In it, the relationship that incorporates the world into painting, the transubstantiation of reality into image, is consumed. The landscape motif, in particular, is entrusted with the threshold function, the status of proximity between man and environment, the condition of every pictorial habitation. In other words, the landscape is the trigger, an expedient: the artist’s primary interest is linguistic in nature: how to depict the landscape? Or, even before, how to look, how to perceive? Through what historical and cultural equipment can one arrive at this mediation – abstraction? – that a painting always entails?”
The exhibition is spread across all the ground floor spaces of the Pascali Foundation: the artist has titled each room, creating an exhibition path that starts from the outside of the Museum with a large site-specific wall painting and concludes with an intervention at Exchiesetta, the small chapel of Santo Stefano in the historic center of Polignano a Mare.
Inside the museum, visitors will be welcomed by The Invention of the Wheel, a subject referable to the Ferris wheel of Mirabilandia, which the artist began painting in 2002, the year following his participation, invited by Harald Szeemann, in the 49th Venice Biennale. The other rooms will follow, developed according to a thematic thought, respectively titled BA(H)R, Icon(e), and Square, ending the exhibition path with a selection of 16 papers, studies, and icons up to the last environment titled Night of Reason (2024).
Marco Neri (Forlì, 1968. Lives and works in Lecce).
Having graduated from the Art Institute of Forlì and the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna in 1992, he began exhibiting in the late 1980s. In 1987, while still attending the Art Institute, he debuted among young Italian artists in “Indagine ‘87” at Palazzo Re Enzo, Bologna; the following year he was among the winners of the “F. P. Michetti Prize” in Francavilla al Mare (1988). He subsequently participated in numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad, including “Intercity Uno” at the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation in Venice (1990), “Cambio di guardia” at the Cannaviello Art Studio, Milan (1995), “Martiri e Santi” at the L’Attico Gallery in Rome (1996), and “Pittura” at the Rivara Castle in Turin (1996). These were followed by “Figuration” at the Rupertinum Museum in Salzburg and the Museion in Bolzano (1999/2000), “Futurama” at the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato (2000), and “Michetti Prize – Different Perspectives in Painting” at the F. P. Michetti Museum in Francavilla al Mare (2000).
In 2001, he held a dual solo exhibition (with Andrea Salvino) at the Open Space of the Gallery of Modern Art in Bologna and in the same year, invited by Harald Szeemann, participated in the 49th Venice Biennale “The Plateau of Humankind.”
Since 2001, he has combined his artistic activity with teaching Painting, first at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna, then in Foggia, and since 2019 in Lecce.
Among the main solo exhibitions: “Greening the Classic” and “Sustaining the Gaze” at the Fabjbasaglia Gallery in Rimini (1996 and 1998); “Project Museum of Italian Art” at the Rivara Castle, Turin (1997); “Skyline” at the Haus-Schneider Gallery in Karlsruhe (1998); “Windows 99” at the Gallery of the Image of the Municipal Museums of Rimini and the Hübner Gallery in Frankfurt (1999); “Come into my room” at the Hilger/Artlab Gallery in Vienna (2000); “Io spazio” at the Alberto Peola Gallery in Turin (2002); “Malerei” at the Diocesan Museum in Munich (2002); “Mirabilandia + Persian Library” at the Museum of Contemporary Furniture in Russi, RA (2003); “Nessun Dogma” at the Emilio Mazzoli Gallery in Modena (2004); “Mars Black” at the Lucas Schoormans Gallery in New York (2006); “Omissis” at the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato (2006); “Underworld” at the Alfonso Artiaco Gallery in Naples (2010); “Giardini” at the Pack Gallery in Milan (2011); “Passante incrociato” at the Center for Visual Arts of the Pescheria Foundation in Pesaro (2012); “Marcobaleno” at the Alfonso Artiaco Gallery in Naples (2014); “I giardini di marco” at the MuseoLaboratorio of Città Sant’Angelo (2015); “#studiolacittà” (with Luca Pancrazzi) at Studio la Città in Verona (2016); “Materia grigia” (with Leonardo Pivi) at Imperfettolab/art in Longiano (2019) and “Di scooter de pictura” at A+B Gallery in Brescia (2021). In 2021, he won the first edition of the National Painting Prize “Osvaldo Licini” and held a solo exhibition at the Osvaldo Licini Museum in Ascoli Piceno (2021/2022).
Marco Neri – About Her
curated by Giuseppe Teofilo
Opening: Saturday, May 18, 2024, at 6 PM
Open to the public: May 18 – September 22, 2024
Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10 AM – 1 PM / 4 PM – 8 PM
Pino Pascali Foundation:
Via Parco del Lauro 119,
Polignano a Mare
Exchiesetta: Via Porto (historic center)
Polignano a Mare
Info: +39 080 4249534 – press@fondazionepascali.it
+39 320 1122513 – segreteria@fondazionepascali.it – fondazionepascali.it
