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Untitled 1974 Untitled 1974 Untitled 1974 Untitled 1979 Untitled 1979 Untitled 1979 Le pazienze 1975 Untitled 1974 Untitled 1974 Untitled 1974 1974 Untitled 1974 Untitled 1974 Untitled 1974 Untitled 1974 Untitled 1976 Untitled 1974 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1977 Untitled 1978 Untitled 1978 Due 1979 Emblems 1968 Foucoult's Portrait 1978 Twins 1978 Untitled 1978 Undae Clemente flamina pulsae 1978 Water & Wine 1981 Earth 1980 Hunger 1980 My Last Painting 1985 Evolution 1983 - 1984 Ave Ovo 1985 Portrait of Luigi Ontani 1985 Portrait of Samantha McEwen 1985 Selfportrait with Animals 1985 Perseverance 1982 1982 Midnight Sun II 1982 Atla 1983 Untitled 1983 My Parents 1982 My House 1982 Everything I know 1981 Swastika 1983 1983 The Departure of the Argonaut 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Unititled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitled 1983 - 1986 Untitiled 1983 - 1986 Place of Power III 1989 Alpine Grip 1987 Tree 1987 - 1988 Place of Power I 1989 Choise 2003 Heart 2003 Ex Libris Chenonceau 1994 - 1995 Ex Libris Chenonceau 1994 - 1995 Ex Libris Chenonceau 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Untitled 1994 - 1995 Unttiled 1998 Untitled 1998 Untitled 1998 Untitled 1998 Untitled 1998 The Sky 2000 Dictionary 1997 Paesaggio [Landscape] 2000 Desire 1998 The hand of strangers 1998 Five steps 2001 Dialogue 2001 Tandoori Satori # 25 2004 Tandoori Satori # 18 2004 Three Walls (Dictionary 1997 Illustrations for In the South of Salman Rushdie 2008 In meiner Heimat I [In My native Land I] 2009 In meiner Heimat II [In My Native Land II] 2009 In meiner Heimat III [In My Native Land III] 2009 In meiner Heimat IV [In My Native Land] 2009 In meiner Heimat V [In My Navive Land V] 2009 In meiner Heimat VI [In My Native Land VI] 2009 In meiner Heimat VII 2009 In meiner Heimat VIII 2009 In meiner Heimat IX 2009 [Nella mia patria X] 2009

FRANCESCO CLEMENTE

Lovers

1983

Courtesy :

In the early 1980s Clemente switches from small to large format, executing works that, as far as the size is concerned, aspire to have an architectural function and to compete with the fresco, a technique he experiments both on metal objects (Everything I know, 1981; Lovers and Swastika, 1983), and on table (Untitled, 1983). My Parents, My House (1982) and My World War III (1983) are three big "teleri", mindful of the Venetian Renaissance tradition that the artist got to know in 1977 during a stay in the lacunar city. Characterized by a complex iconography and animated by a sort of horror vacui, these works mark the definitive separation of the artist from his personal past and the achievement of a new freedom of action. This freedom manifests itself through the undisciplined and unconventional use of iconographic elements drawn from the history of art as well as from popular traditions, or through the new creation of his imaginative world. In My House - started in Italy and completed in few days of hectic work in Berlin in order to be displayed in the collective exhibition Zeitgeist held at the Martin-Gripius Bau – the furniture is in fact covered by sheets and the house appears abandoned. In this larger-than-life image Clemente experiments for the first time in painting a strategy developed in 1975, excessively enlarging the photograph of one of his drawings focused on doubles and on binary couples. Similarly, My House is divided in two parts by an orange form that serves both as a ceiling and as a floor. The top of the painting features the Elephanta caves, in India, dating from the V-XI century AD. The presence of the Telamons and the capital with the Atlas suggests a tribute to two texts by Alberto Savinio: Casa "La vita" of 1943 and the short story La casa stupida, published in the collection Tutta la Vita of 1945, featuring once again the allegory of life both as a house full of everyday and allusive objects, and as a realm of memory and imagination. In an interview of 1981 the artist in fact mentions explicitly La casa stupida, underlining the value that the writer attached to memory, which according to him was embodied by the Telamon, who in the story supports the house.

My Parents

1982

My House

1982

Napoli 1952
[...] sitting in Madras at the Theosophical Society for several years, I was reading Indian authors who were familiar with the writings of Emerson, of Thoreau. So in India ...
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