“The sound of the painting. Danilo Bucchi’s work force us to face a conceptual problem. How to make the painting feel beyond the narrow sense of the visible and allow us to bring it closer to the perception of volume and memory, music and rhythm?”
Bernardo Pinto de Almeida, exhibition’s curator
The Gaburro Gallery in Milan hosts for the first time a solo show by Danilo Bucchi (Rome, 1978), entitled “Volumi”. Curated by Bernardo Pinto de Almeida, the exhibition includes new large-format canvases and a site-specific project.
After the monochrome series Blu, the exhibition organized by the Gaburro Gallery, it is a return to black and white – the two non-colours – that represents in the most authentic way the poetics of Danilo Bucchi, presented here in a 2.0 version.
The use of a new material, that gives an effect of endless liquidity, offers a surprisingly three-dimensional result, created by the contrast between volume, surface gloss and opacity of the canvas.
New is also the stylistic and conceptual approach of the artist, who in this last series of works adopts an innovative pictorial process. The technique used to create the works on display is close to, and sometimes coincides with, the development of analogue photography – a medium that has always been used by the artist – since the colour is the result of a careful measurement linkedto the preparation of chemists; while the process by which the images are selected – from notebook to canvas – recalls the choice of contact sheets.
Main focus of these brand new artworks is the most executive and controlled part of a gesture that, starting from the notebook, retains its recognizable mark, returning to the spectator its multiple emotional atmospheres.
“Volumi” refers to the dualism between the musicality of the work and the fluidity of the subjects that the artist uses to lay out on the canvas and which, seen as a whole, give back at a glance the whole simultaneity of the parts, contributing to the art piece’s harmony.
Speaking of the artist’s production, Bernardo Pinto de Almeida argues that Bucchi’s work presents us with much more complex conceptual problems.
“In fact” – recalls the curator – “even with multiple languages – installation, photography, painting, or digital works, the artist always returns to a mode that we can define as rhythmic in nature”.
Every gesture, every sign, every movement of the body comes close to improvisation, to the musical score and even to poetry, an expression of a strong performative character.
Biographical notes
Danilo Bucchi (Rome, 1978) studied in Rome, where he attended the Fine Arts Academy, focusing on drawing techniques, painting and photography. The artist showed from the get-go a real determination in basing his own language in a signs’ universe, which refers to the tradition of European abstract art by the first avant-gardes, with the aid of technological techniques and supports.
In 2003 he started with international exhibitions in cities like Bucharest (Parliament Palace 2016), Sofia (SAMCA 2016), Bulgaria (City Art Gallery of Varna 2014), Konstanz (Archaeology Museum 2014), Singapore (Partners & Mucciaccia Gallery 2013), Athens (True Lies Copelouzos Art Museum 2012), New York (MET Metropolitan Museum of Art 2010), Beijing (798 art district 2008) and Cairo (10° International Biennale 2006), Paris (Italian Institute of Culture, 2007), Buenos Aires (Contemporary Art Museum of Buenos Aires 2005), Baku (Italian Embassy 2004) and Amsterdam (Supper Club 2003).
Among his major solo exhibitions are: Dolls (2008), Contemporary Art Society, Rome; Tema Sacro (2011), Museo del Risorgimento, Bologna; Danilo Bucchi (2011), Palazzo Collicola – Arti Visive, Spoleto; Signs. The black line (2011), MLAC, Rome; Monochrome (2015), Galleria Poggiali e Forconi, Florence; #danilobucchi (2016), Galleria Il Ponte Contemporanea, Rome. Between 2014 and 2015, Danilo Bucchi was invited to create three large urban regeneration projects: Il paese dei balocchi (2014), a permanent installation at the MAAM; Assolo (2015) for Big City Life, with which he participated at the Venice Biennial (15th Architecture Exhibition, Italian Pavilion); Minotauro (2015) for Emergence Festival in Sicily.
The year 2017 marks his solo exhibition Lunar Black at the MACRO Museum in Rome, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
His artworks are among important public collection such as: Prato Contemporanea, Bastione Delle Forche, Museo Pecci (Prato Italy), Collezione Farnesina, Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Rome, Italy), Collicola on the wall, Palazzo Collicola arti Visive (Spoleto, Italy), True lies, Copelouzos Art Museum (Athens, Greece)
In 2018 his work Liquid (2016) was included into the permanent collection of the National Gallery in Rome.
In 2019 Bucchi’s solo exhibition Seed of grey took place in the historical Pièce Unique gallery in Paris, while in 2020 the artist created the monumental art project To live you die at the Giardini Naxos port in Sicily.