Sara Honegger Chiari

Then along comes painting

At the beginning, just words from little white stones on the black earth, in order to not lose the way home. His painting increasingly resembles his words. He creates worlds, other natures, other existences: before and after, gestures and uncertainty, childhood and death, maturity and life. But also the abstract, or the figurative, and the ambiguity of painting, blinded by the light of the rain that is falling today, in his transparent spot. Giorgio talks a lot. He did so already 10 years ago, when we met in another studio, in another story. Even back then, colour came first. But the colour was the colour of earth. Matter searching for light. Since then, nothing has stayed still, the house, the gaze, the studio, have changed. And the painting has changed too. The perimeters have been forgotten forever, the matter, abandoned. Subtraction after subtraction, only colour remains. That fleeting, rebellious colour, that Giorgio has encapsulated into the liquid of polymers. Some of these floating figures have chosen the canvass path. Giorgio says they’ve come home, to tradition – as if his colour were on a long journey and his first efforts as an artist were to invent and discover a new way to grasp and drag it where others could see it, every day. It appears to be simple, but it is not. Because in capturing, in that furiousness that is extinguished in the act, there’s an ancient, archaic violence. Nothing is calm, nothing is peaceful. It is life: the gaze of the present that is constantly being tackled by the past and the future. The new story begins here, in the transparent space. The earth is behind, the sky in front. The canvasses are leaning against the wall, they are covered in rice paper, fragile like snow that on certain days of the year falls upon the marble head of Bernadette della Valganna, a silent witness to grace and paternal love. Giorgio removes them one by one. Sometimes – a blot of ink, a smear of violet – he crumples them up and throws them away. More often, he folds them. And with his strength, he slowly moves the canvasses. The space is immediately cluttered and I find I have to move. I’m afraid to move, to scratch the secret between shiny and opaque. Nostalgic colours silence me. I feel a sense of loss, of something that will never return. Perhaps that’s why I look outside – the dog licking his fur, the lions by the gate, the stairs to the entrance. Suddenly I realise that everything is double. There are two lions, two steps, two polymers, two elements in the drawings. And I realise that what matters is in between: the intangible raw colour, the image created from thick graphite on dry paper. A horizontal cross becomes a bird in flight. The severe shadow of two bowls of rice. I speak the truth. I would like a canvass just for me. That always happens, with Giorgio: I enter, I have a look, and I want everything. The jars of colour, the wrapped polymers, the cigarettes, the paper, the brushes, the writing on the wall. But most of all, the raw colours: the grey that wants to escape, the burning red river that is flowing over me, the whisper of the purple, that much-loved colour that skims the many whites around me. Yes, I would like to take this away, and much more. The effort, perhaps. That which Giorgio must feel when he’s working, divided from the world by this glass membrane. When one dares, researches, recomposes and performs the gesture, which is always bold and almost scandalous, of declaring to be indispensable: to capture colour and place it here, in front of our eyes.


Critical Texts

Claudio Cerritelli, Permutation and resistance in the painting of Giorgio Vicentini Claudio Cerritelli, Il colore crudo di Giorgio Cecilia De Carli, Non ho parole Flaminio Gualdoni, Vicentini, un diario intimo per svelare le emozioni con la forza dei colori Giorgio Vicentini, If Sergio Vanni, Le carte nascoste di Giorgio Licia Spagnesi, Il colore di Giorgio Martina Corgnati, Le intenzioni Sara Honegger Chiari, Then along comes painting Vittoria Broggini, The comprehensive horizon of Giorgio Cecilia De Carli, Piccole conversazioni a proposito dell'installazione IN CORPORE EXPO 2015 Ettore Ceriani, Giorgio Vicentini e il sogno della realtà Marina De Marchi, A Castello Grazia Massone, Custodire Giovanni Maria Accame, L'esperienza della pittura Claudio Cerritelli, Scintille Riccardo Prina, Assalto e Difesa Vittoria Broggini, Flying notes Claudio Cerritelli, Capturing the development of painting Francesco Tedeschi, Diario critico bisestile dell'anno 2000 ed. Campanotto, Udine 2012 Erika La Rosa, Non basta un solo tentativo per catturare l'orizzonte - Varesenews, 21 novembre 2017 Mauro Bianchini, Volatilità di segno e percorrenze di forme Giorgio Vicentini, Claudio Cerritelli, Marina Pierani, Incontriamoci dove inizia l'orizzonte Chiara Gatti , Come nasce e si sviluppa un'opera d'arte - La Repubblica, giovedì 21 marzo 2019 Lupus in Fabula, Ilias Cocchi Pontalti Luisa Negri, Un secolo di pittura. Varese nei colorii dei suoi artisti Cristina Sissa, Genesi - Catalogo mostra - Studio d'Arte del Lauro Carla Tocchetti, Gli Arazzi Volanti di Giorgio Vicentini al Battistero di Velate giugno 2019 Paolo Biscottini, Colore Crudo luglio 2007 Claudio Del Frate, Erano dimenticati in manicomio. Oggi espongono alla Biennale - Corriere della Sera, Milano 15 luglio 2005 Elena Pontiggia , Giorgio Vicentini, l'Essere e il Nulla Chiara Gatti, Visita in studio Simonetta Lux , Lo dirò a tuo padre - Catalogo ERRORI GRAVI ©1998 ISBN 88.7269.079.X FEDA SA - Fidia Edizioni d’Arte - Lugano Luisa Negri, Le "fondamenta occidentali" di Giorgio Vicentini - Varese Focus, OTTOBRE 2020 Cristina Casero, La confessione - Decima Biennale d'Arte Sacra - Fondazione Stauros, Santuario San Gabriele (Te) Settembre 2002 Elena Di Raddo, Scheda opera dittico Vestali, L'arte moderna in Intesa SanPaolo, L'Ultimo Novecento, Mondadori Electa S.p.A. Milano 2013 Erika La Rosa, I colori si fidano di lui, Varesenews 8 aprile 2021 Mario Chiodetti, Vicentini, eterno bambino che gioca con luce e colori Isabella Colonna Preti , Colore crudo - Galleria Duetart, Varese Sara Honegger Chiari , Le amnesie del perimetro - 7 giugno 1996 Luca Cavallini , Museo della Permanente - Milano 9 marzo 2022 Matteo Giuseppe Dall'Ava , Un astrattista molto concreto - Per Edizioni Teelent 19 gennaio 2022 Luciano Caramel, Centottanta gradi - Gennaio 1990 Luisa Negri , Quell'arte nel nome del figlio - 8 agosto 1992 Giorgio Vicentini, Sorgente Lucio Fontana - Aula Borsi. Università Cattolica, Milano gennaio 2019 Andrea Bortoluzzi - Libreria Carù, La voce della carta Chiara Gatti , Sintonie - prefazione, Casa editrice Stampa 2009, ottobre 2022 Varese Mario Visco , Poesie e disegni: le Sintonie di Vicentini - La Prealpina - Varese, 21 gennaio 2023 Gianfranco Colombo, Cera e acrilico Aree di Vicentini Claudio Rizzi , Parlatorio - Libreria Bocca, Milano, 11 settembre 1997 Il Gazzettino di Vicenza , Quando il colore diventa "Luce atmosfera e forma" - 2 ottobre 2014 Francesco Tedeschi , Il colore come forma plastica, percorso attraverso una forma di astrazione - Skira ottobre 2014 Emanuele Beluffi, Giorgio Vicentini, altre il visibile c'è di più - Il Giornale Off - 6 agosto 2024
Giorgio Vicentini visual artist