Marais, Paris
Ezio Gribaudo
Homo Ludens
Sans TitreArtist and publisher, Ezio Gribaudo (1929–2022, Turin) was awarded the Premio per la Grafica (Printmaking Prize) at the 33rd edition of the Venice Biennale in 1966, followed one year later by a prize at the São Paulo Biennial. This international institutional recognition came at a moment when this singular mediator was at the height of his career.[1] Widely exhibited, he also established himself as a key figure in the world of art publishing through Edizioni d’Arte Fratelli Pozzo and Fabbri. Lucio Fontana, Michel Tapié, Asger Jorn, Peggy Guggenheim, Karel Appel, and Giorgio de Chirico were among his close professional and personal circle.[2] Behind the celebrated figure lies the playful child we tend to forget. The solo exhibition of Ezio Gribaudo at Sans titre is conceived as a tribute structured around an idea encapsulated in its title: Homo Ludens. Borrowed from the well-known text by Pierre Restany on the spirit of the 1966 Biennale,[3] it reactivates its acuity. 1966, a pivotal and playful year; 2026, its possible re-celebration, without forgetting the paving stones beneath the beach of 1968, when play turned into rage. Crowned with success, Gribaudo’s 1966 Logogrifi now appear as discreet witnesses to a time of tension. The Premio per la Grafica would disappear two years later, and with it, a certain reverence toward History. Yet Ezio Gribaudo, while riding the spirit of his time, had already propelled himself into other temporalities: the distant past of geological strata, the enigmatic future, and the fervor of the present. Extract of the text by Julia Marchand 1 - To complete the picture of this decade, it is worth recalling the prize awarded at the 9th National Quadriennale of Art in Rome in 1965. 2 - His presence in Venice, for example, predates his consecration in 1966. As early as 1961, he exhibited at Carlo Cardazzo’s Galleria del Cavallino, a stronghold of the Italian avant garde from the 1950s to the 1970s. 3 - Pierre Restany, in Domus, August 1966.