Institutions, Venice
Arnulf Rainer & Emilio Vedova
Ora
Spazio VedovaTickets available at: bit.ly/3yTJg5O Spanning two sites, Magazzini del Sale and Spazio Vedova on the Zattere, the exhibition will bring together the works by two preeminent figures of post-World War II European art scene: Arnulf Rainer and Emilio Vedova. Despite their differences in age and training, Rainer and Vedova enjoyed a long friendship and shared a similar idea of the role of the artist, conceived as someone whose duty is to engage with the events of his time. A striking and radical artist, Emilio Vedova was considered by his contemporaries a leading exponent of Art Informel and was praised by Peggy Guggenheim as a rising star of the European avant-garde. A revolutionary of his time, Vedova gained notoriety in the 20th-century art world by spearheading movements including the anti-Fascist artist’s union, Corrente, and the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti; in 1946 he co-wrote the Manifesto del realism di pittori e scultori, also known as Oltre Guernica. Regarded as a pioneer of Art Informel, Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer’s early influences of Surrealism, alongside an ongoing interest in dreams and the subconscious, imparts a mystical element to his work. Renowned for his overpaintings – made by layering brushstrokes over existing artworks or photographs – Rainer produces a dialogue with the underlying source material, which remains visible to varying degrees, playing with notions of creation and destruction in a paradoxical homage to the original. A catalogue in English and Italian, published by Marsilio Editori, will accompany the exhibition.