Giorgio Griffa. Marvels of the Unknown

Initially conceived to echo the exhibition Paul Klee, Between-Worlds, which has been postponed until 18 September 2021, the exhibition Giorgio Griffa. Marvels of the Unknown takes a look at the career of an artist who knows how to combine chromatic exuberance with conceptual dimensions like few others. Comprising over a hundred works (large-scale drawings and canvases), most of which have never or only infrequently been exhibited before, the exhibition that the LaM is devoting to Giorgio Griffa (born in Turin in 1936) in early 2021 is an invitation to discover a major figure on the Italian art scene who has previously been given little exposure in France.

Dates :
12.02.21 > 28.11.21

Horaires :
Tuesday to sunday
10 am- 6pm

Prices :
Full price : 7 €
Reduced price : 5 €

Giorgio Griffa, Giorno Notte, 2020. Acrylique sur toile (bandera) ; 96 x 69 cm. Courtesy Giorgio Griffa. © Adagp Paris, 2020

Giorgio Griffa, Canone Aureo 386, 2016. Acrylique sur toile ; 303 x 222 cm. Courtesy Giorgio Griffa. © Adagp Paris, 2020

Giorgio Griffa, Aperto Chiuso, 2020. Acrylique sur toile (bandera) ; 96 x 69 cm. Courtesy Giorgio Griffa. © Adagp Paris, 2020

Giorgio Griffa, Orizzontale verticale, 1978. Acrylique sur toile ; 75 x 158 cm. LaM, Villeneuve d'Ascq. © Adagp Paris, 2020

In the early 1980s, after beginnings marked by a degree of formal austerity and experimentation with straight lines, his vocabulary expanded, proliferating with curves, spirals and zigzags. His palette, composed of glowing pastel colours whose joyfulness is reminiscent of Matisse, emanates a form of hedonism. Like Paul Klee’s body of work, in which signs are expressions of rhythm and form is the result of dynamic deployment of lines, Griffa’s art follows the simple, timeless and sometimes haphazard pulsations of living, moving bodies.

Commissariat

Sébastien Delot, directeur-conservateur du LaM
Marie-Amélie Senot, attachée de conservation pour l’art moderne et l’art contemporain du LaM
Assisté·e·s de Grégoire Prangé, coordinateur de la conservation du LaM