GABRIELE GRONES
Conversations
Curated by Elisabetta Barisoni and Giovanna Nicoletti
10 December 2021 – 27 February 2022
Venice, Ca’ Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art
In 2020 Ca’ Pesaro has chosen for Artverona Fairs’s Level 0 programme Gabriele Grones’ work presented by Boccanera Gallery, Trento. He had already been shortlisted for the Mestre Painting Prize that same year. For Grones, who studied at the Liceo Artistico Statale and the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, this is a return home and a moment to reflect on recent production. Over the past few months, Grones has been working in continuous dialogue with the Museum’s permanent collection, spending days in the rooms and reflecting on the works and artists once back in his studio. For the Gallery, which since 1902 has been engaged in an uninterrupted confrontation between established masters and newcomers to contemporary art, the value of these experiences is always that of passing the word to both interlocutors.
At Ca’ Pesaro, Grones thus presents seven moments of site-specific dialogue placed along crucial points of the itinerary.
In particular, the artist, with a hyper-realistic, almost photographic painting technique, on small canvases, is on show side by side with two sculpture portraits made by Medardo Rosso in wax in room 1 and with The white mask by Fernand Khnopff in room 3. He extracts and then elaborates some details on the work of Joaquín Sorolla Sewing the sail in room 2 and in room 5 he is in dialogue with Le Signorine by Felice Casorati, with the paintings by Umberto Moggioli Small landscape of Burano and Autumn in Treporti, then in room 8 with the Vases and bottles and Still life by Giorgio Morandi and finally in room 15 with Giovanni Anselmo and his sculpture Untitled, a famous piece of Arte Povera
Saturday 11 December 2021, for the 17th edition of the Contemporary Day, promoted by AMACI – Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums with the support of the General Direction for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture, Ca’ Pesaro invited Grones to work directly in the spaces of the Museum, setting up his own temporary studio in room 5.
Here the artist has worked on some works, helping himself with the materials of his research (books, notes, photographs) and making his creative process, made of meticulous study, research and technical expertise, intellectual reflection and passion, available to visitors.