Arcangelo
Milan, 20 February – 10 May 2025 |
Arcangelo
20 February – 10 May 2025
Milan
Corso Venezia 29, 20121 Milan, MI
Tuesday – Saturday, 11am-7pm
Marcorossi Artecontemporanea is pleased to present, as the first exhibition of 2025, an important project dedicated to Arcangelo. The exhibition, divided among the venues in Milan, Turin, and Verona, features a collection of works from the 1990s, many of which have never been shown before, alongside recent canvases created last summer in the artist’s studio in Benevento. The display is complemented by a valuable selection of works on paper from the 1990s.
Over more than forty years, Arcangelo has managed to renew the foundations of expressionist painting with a lyrical and emotional intensity that manifests through a strong and contrasting use of color. By the late 1980s, the monochromatic rigor of his early works, created with humble, organic materials such as earth, charcoal, and pure pigments, had evolved into a more measured calibration of colors. In the 1990s, Arcangelo’s works on paper and canvas began to explicitly reference African lands, which he had visited during a trip in the winter of 1990. His palette, now more vibrant, became enriched with greens and reds that complemented the black of charcoal, while his stylistic hallmark remained unchanged—a blend of marks, stains, pigment accumulations, and textured surfaces.
Arcangelo paints almost without the use of tools: he applies color to the canvas with quick and precise hand gestures or imprints pigment with his fingers. Arcangelo is a radical artist in the literal and textual sense of the word because his entire practice is rooted in a sense of belonging and the sharing of a cultural heritage—specifically the Samnite one—which he has extended and transformed by incorporating the legacies of other places and peoples. His affection for his homeland has evolved into something more powerful and universal, giving rise to a “global” form of painting filled with inspirations from Africa, the Near East, the Mediterranean, China, and many other regions.
The exhibition will showcase works from various cycles that the artist has developed in parallel over the years: Terra Mia, Pianeti, Misteri, Tappeti Persiani, Sanniti, and Fiori di Croco, culminating in his most recent canvases from 2024 titled Fiori di Magnolie.
