Notargiacomo in velocità

 

It has always been this way: I would think of a painting and consider it already done. The rest was work. 

Realising a conceived work, and so already complete, felt like moving away from it: distancing myself from its immediate knowledge. I know well that there is another kind of knowledge, one that belongs to the act of making. What we know is what we do, and only while we are doing it. It is a deep and complex form of knowledge, but it is something different from the flash, better, from that sequence of flashes, that is thinking it. 

But how can the two moments be brought closer together without the first dissolving too much into the other? 

For me, it came naturally to move fast. 

Gianfranco Notargiacomo 

 

It is the artist’s first solo exhibition of an anthological nature in a public space in Rome, with the sole exception of the 1971 installation Le nostre divergenze, exhibited at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome in 2009. 

A philosophy graduate, Gianfranco Notargiacomo made his debut in 1969 with relational works ante litteram at Galleria Arco d’Alibert, and throughout the 1970s continued his activity by exhibiting in the most important Roman galleries of the period, such as La Tartaruga run by Plinio De Martiis and La Salita founded by Gian Tomaso Liverani. 

Over the course of his career, the art historian Flavio Caroli included Notargiacomo in the Magico Primario group, positioning him as a leading figure of the Neo-Informal tendency in the 1980s, in the wake of Emilio Vedova—a great admirer and close friend—alongside other movements such as German Neo-Expressionism. 

The exhibition at Padiglione 9a of the Mattatoio di Roma opens with Roma assoluta (2003), an aerial view of the city struck by lightning and thunderbolts—hallmark elements of the artist’s distinctive visual idiolect—constituting a profound homage by Notargiacomo to the Italian capital. 

The exhibition unfolds dynamically (speed being an expressive, technical, and poetic modality of the artist), retracing Notargiacomo’s work through the presentation of several large-scale, monumental, and heroic pictorial cycles: Tempestaand Assalto (1980), Il Caos and Giganti (1995), Pittura Estrema (1999); the iconic small coloured pongo figures from the installation Le nostre divergenze (1971); three large examples of Takéte (1995), a form of painting/sculpture with Futurist roots; works such as 1945 (1983), in which sheet metal becomes the central material; and finally the most recent fluorescent paintings, including Quarantaminuti, produced from 2023 onwards. 

One section of the exhibition is devoted to a series of photographic documents that testify to key moments in the artist’s career: his participation in the Venice Art Biennale (1982, 1986, 2011); exhibitions at the galleries La Tartaruga, Arco d’Alibert, and La Salita (1970s–1980s); and encounters with significant artists who represented fundamental milestones in his artistic, intellectual, and human development. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue published by Silvana Editoriale, edited by Marco Tonelli, with scholarly apparatus by Paola Pallotta and an anthology of contributions by authors close to the artist, including: Flavio Caroli, Arnaldo Colasanti, Luigi Ficacci, Mariastella Margozzi, Giacomo Marramao, Barbara Martusciello, Ada Masoero, Stefano Papetti, Silvia Pegoraro, Federica Pirani, and Claudio Strinati. 

 

Info 

Mattatoio di Roma
Piazza Orazio Giustiniani, 4 – Rome
Padiglione 9a
www.mattatoioroma.it
Facebook: @mattatoioroma
Instagram: @mattatoio – #MattatoioRoma 

Opening hours 

Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00 am – 8:00 pm
 Free admission. Closed on Mondays.
 Last entry one hour before closing time. 

 

PRESS OFFICE – AZIENDA SPECIALE PALAEXPO 

Piergiorgio Paris | M. +39 347 8005911 – [email protected]
 Federica Mariani | M. +39 366 6493235 – [email protected]
 Adele Della Sala | M. +39 366 4435942 – [email protected]
 [email protected]
 Dario Santarsiero | T. +39 06 69627 1205 – [email protected]