Arcangelo: Pittore Ulissico
Arcangelo: Pittore Ulissico
The Museo Butti | Contemporanea in Viggiù reopens to the public after the most recent renovation works on its new exhibition space, located on the second floor of Casa Butti, with a retrospective exhibition dedicated to the painter Arcangelo. The exhibition is curated by conservator Veronica Zanardi and accompanied by a critical essay by Roberto Gramiccia, published in the second volume of I quaderni del Butti.
The thirteen works on display span from the early 1990s to the most recent years of this century, encompassing several of the main pictorial cycles that define the artist’s body of work.
(…) Arcangelo: a heretical artist, a free-thinking follower of Giordano Bruno who, despite the stifling calm, continues his journey and now arrives in this small but precious museum, bearing witness to his painting—gritty and seductive. Arcangelo, one of the few truly talented painter-painters at the height of his artistic maturity, has no interest in the weariness and numbing atmosphere of the post-contemporary. For many years, he has continued his physical and mental journey, with the courage but also the courtesy of someone who—as we once wrote—”travels the world with a bottle of wine (or rum) in hand to offer a drink to whomever he meets.”
(…) Introspection rather than representation. Exploration of the unknown rather than chronicling the present. A painting of gesture, but also of compositional knowledge rooted in an ancient tradition. Pulsating vitality and an inexhaustible drive for research that reconciles with a practice of actions and thoughts inspired by strong ideas—not the weak resignation of those who merely try to “get through the night.” Arcangelo, with his art, doesn’t want to get through the night—he wants to make it unforgettable, like a night of love with the most beautiful and beloved of women.
Arcangelo was born in Avellino in 1956. He lives and works in Milan and in San Nazzaro, Benevento. He teaches Painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan.
Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, he made his debut in Germany and Switzerland—at the Tanit Gallery in Munich, the Buchmann Gallery in Basel, and with Perspective, an exhibition held on the occasion of Art Basel. This was followed by exhibitions at Galerie Janine Mautsch in Cologne, Galerie Pierre Huber in Geneva, Galerie Maeght-Lelong in Paris, and Edward Totah Gallery in London.
He participated in the 11th Rome Quadriennale in 1986 and again in the 12th edition in 1996.
