Gregorio Pedroli

Untitled

Curated by Simone Soldini and Paola Tedeschi-Pellanda

12 January – 2 March 2008

Press conference: Thursday 10th January 2008 at 11.00

Vernissage: Friday 11th January at 18.00

Open:Tues-Fri14.00 – 17.00

Sat-Sun 10.00 – 12.00 / 14.00 – 18.00

Info 0041 91 646 76 49

From January to March 2008, the Museo d’arte di Mendrisio will hold an exhibition of the work of Gregorio Pedroli, an artist from Ticino who received public and critical acclaim for his one-man show in 1995 at the Museo Epper in Ascona and for the 2004 exhibition at the Museo cantonale d’arte in Lugano of his recent work.

Born in 1951 at Sorengo, Pedroli trained at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel and at the Accademia di Brera in Milan. His early artistic career was influenced by these two different environments – artistic circles of the northern Alpine area and Italian art which was still imbued with naturalism and the Informal style of the Lombard school. Pedroli opted for painting as his preferred medium, and concentrated from the start on the expressive potential of sign and colour. From explicit biomorphic figuration he gradually moved towards a figurative form which was merely hinted at, and recently, rather surprisingly, introduced into his work geometric elements combined with an increasingly calligraphic style, full of tense emotion.

His most recent works consist of diptychs and triptychs, which explore a language that has gradually come to represent a reflection on the meaning of painting today. His technique now focuses more on suspension and rarefaction, communicating with space by means of a refined mistiness and chromatic transparency, while a hint of biomorphism lingers in his threadlike forms. His use of an unusual palette, deliberately almost kitsch, dissolves his apparent lyricism into subtle irony. Pedroli’s is a language showing the influence of photography and video art, which - through strident contrasts in the character of the sign and disturbing choices of composition - trasforms the regeneration of traditional painting into a critical and provocative act, resulting in some of the most interesting work on the current art scene, not only in Ticino. This new reflection on the art of painting sets Pedroli in a wider context, distinguished by a new direction in research at international level, which has refocused the attention of both critics and the public on painting, and on abstract art in particular.

With this exhibition devoted to Gregorio Pedroli, the Museo d’arte Mendrisio continues a trend exploring artists whose research and experimentation over many years have produced fascinating and thought-provoking work in the context of the current re-evaluation of art.

The following bodies have contributed to the exhibition: Cooperativa Migros Ticino and the Republic and State of Canton Ticino/Fondo Swisslos.