14 Feb 2011

Bruno Querci at A arte Studio Invernizzi, Milan

On Thursday 17 February at 6.30 pm a solo exhibition devoted to the artist Bruno Querci will open at A arte Studio Invernizzi. Designed to relate directly with the exhibition space, 18 works from the new 'Infinitotraccia' cycle will be on show.

'The surfaces painted in black and white by Bruno Querci', writes Bruno Corà, 'reveal all their radicalism and essentialism to the viewer. The fact that they are in themselves an accomplished episode of a perceptive experience can immediately be seen in their evident search for spatial balance, and in their dramatic limpidity, which enters a dimension that not only resides within the paintings themselves but that also captivates the white walls of the premises and the entire space that also surrounds the visitors themselves.
But Querci and his work, which I have been following for years, ever since we first met in his Prato studio, require longer and more attentive observation, for it is only through time spent with these works – a time that I would refer to as extended, inter-relational, and active – that it is possible to discern the other latent levels in his painting. Levels where voids, projections and convexities await those capable of capturing and extracting contrasts from their dynamism. This can and indeed does takes place, for in his creation of antinomy given visual form by the black and white of the canvas, Querci always seeks to achieve a self-apparent image and not simply to perform an achromatic exercise. Like Lo Savio before him, he boldly ventures into the same extreme polar latitudes of Space-Light in order 'to master the new infinity that is waiting to be expressed', as the artist himself states.
(...) Querci's is always a form of painting on the borderline, never interested in going beyond it in search of the uniqueness of a single figure but rather on a quest to find the essence of all possible figures. Together with few other contemporary Italian artists, Querci occupies an original position in the world of research into all the various painting processes that are not mimetically representative.'

A bilingual catalogue of the exhibition will be published with an introductory essay by Bruno Corà, an interview with the artist by Chiara Mari, a poem by Carlo Invernizzi, reproductions of the works on show in the gallery, and up-to-date biographical and bibliographical notes.


Bruno Querci was born in 1956 in Prato, where he lives and works.
He made a name for himself in the early 1980s as the creator of an original approach to painting which contrasted with the prevalent forms of expression at the time. Querci was part of the 'Astrazione Povera' group – a movement theorised by the critic Filiberto Menna – and in 1986 he was invited to take part in the 'Il meno è il più, per una astrazione povera' exhibition at La Salerniana, Convento di San Carlo, in Erice.
His early solo exhibitions included 'Situazioni' at the Galleria Vivita in Florence in 1984 and 'Progetti Minimi' at the Galleria Jartrakor in Rome, in 1987.
In 1988 Querci was invited to take part in the 'Internationale Triennale der Zeichnung' at the Kunsthalle in Nuremberg, and in 1990 in the 'Astratta, secessioni astratte in Italia dal dopoguerra al 1990' exhibition.
In 1996 he and the painters Gianni Asdrubali and Nelio Sonego, and the poet Carlo Invernizzi signed the 'Tromboloide e disquarciata. Natura Naturans' manifesto and, in 1997, he took part in their exhibition at the Centro Espositivo della Rocca Paolina in Perugia, at the Galleria Nothburga in Innsbruck, at the Museum Rabalderhaus in Schwaz and in 1999 at the Musei Civici di Villa Manzoni in Lecco.
That year also saw the travelling 'Bruno Querci. Naturaenergialuce' exhibition at the Palazzo Municipale in Vignate, at the Palazzo Pretorio in Certaldo, and at the Palazzo Racani Arroni in Spoleto.
Also in 1997, during the 'Irradiazioni' cycle curated by the Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci and by the Cultural Commission of the municipality of Prato, the Associazione Culturale Grafio of Prato put on a sweeping solo exhibition of his works, entitled 'Apparizioni'.
In 2001 he took part in the 'Abitanti. Arte in relazione a Palazzo Fabroni' exhibition in Pistoia, where in 2004 he also took part in 'Sonde.Dieci anni con gli artisti' at the Palazzo Fabroni.
In 2007, CAMeC, Centro Arte Moderna e Contemporanea della Spezia, put on an anthological exhibition.
In 2010 he and David Tremlett were invited to show their works in Bagnolo di Lonigo at the Villa Pisani Bonetti, an early masterpiece by Palladio.