STEFANO ARIENTI MERIDIANE 2020
Grassobbio (Bergamo), The Drawing Hall
April 8 – May 3, 2022
Exhibition views: © Walter Carrera. Courtesy TDH, Grassobbio
Curated by Ilaria Bernardi
The exhibition aims to highlight how drawing, for Stefano Arienti (Asola, Mantua, 1961), is fundamental and conceptually akin to the scientific method: it is a tool for analyzing the world by selecting its most relevant aspects and ennobling it through minimal interventions on the physical elements of which it is made up.
The exhibition includes a nucleus of previously unseen works, created in 2020 during the first lockdown and never exhibited until now. They are part of the Meridiane cycle, undertaken by Arienti in 2012 and continued in subsequent years. Meridiane are based on the practice of tracing drawing: on sheets of wrapping paper or on a fresco base, the artist freely traces the margin between light and shadow filtering through a window, using tempera, wax and oil pastels, acrylic paint, and felt-tip pens. Recording the path of the sun, also with the support of colour, Arienti marks the variations of light and the interruptions in correspondence with the elements that interpose themselves between the sun and the leaf.
The exhibition also includes numerous design drawings of four site-specific interventions conceived by Arienti in the Lombardy region. blueprints for large-scale, site-specific interventions in religious buildings in Lombardy and Piedmont. These drawings are complementary to Meridiane, as they are characterized by a figurative and studied stroke, rather than an abstract and extemporaneous one.
The exhibition ends with the screening of the documentary Meridiane 2020 by Marco Marcassoli.