Sempre arrivava
avvolto da
una trasparenza
impenetrabile

Sempre arrivava avvolto da una trasparenza impenetrabile  (He always arrived wrapped in impenetrable transparency) presents approximately one hundred artworks created between the 1960s and the present day by over fifty different artists.

Covering three floors, this exhibition – curated by Vincenzo de Bellis – investigates very different approaches and methods, ranging from painting to sculpture, and from sketches to installations, videos, performances and photography. Its main emphasis is on how the often provocative nature of artworks and their conceptual and historic content make them one of the most effective tools for interpreting the world we live in, even when they are not – like many of the works on display – directly linked to our everyday existence.

The title is taken from one of the artworks on display, created by Vincenzo Agnetti in 1971 and entitled Ritratto di ignoto (Portrait of an Unknown Person). The work belongs to Agnetti’s famous felt series, and features the phrase Sempre arrivava avvolto da una trasparenza impenetrabile (He always arrived wrapped in impenetrable transparency) that metaphorically encapsulates the three main themes the exhibition is based on, namely language, abstraction and physicality.

Sempre arrivava avvolto da una trasparenza impenetrabile, installation view. Ph: Jürgen Eheim

Sempre arrivava avvolto da una trasparenza impenetrabile, installation view. Ph: Jürgen Eheim

These issues are also at the heart of what is generically described as “conceptual art”, a definition that, in terms of both numbers and concepts, can be applied to practically all the works in the exhibition.

The three themes are analysed in three different rooms entitled In other words;The more abstract I become, the more I see; and Your body is my body.This structure presents the works like chapters in a story that is both ideal and personal – a definition that captures the mood of every private collection.