ARTISSIMA 2023

On the occasion of the 30th edition of Artissima, Frittelli arte contemporanea proposes a booth dedicated to Paolo Masi (Florence, 1933).

The exhibition project is conceived in continuity with the exhibition Paolo Masi in Florence. Paintngs from the Eightes, curated by Fabio Cavallucci, held in the gallery spaces as a celebration of the artist's 90th birthday, presenting a selection of large paintngs first exhibited in 1985 during a tribute exhibition in the Sala d'Arme of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.

In the 1980s, between the affirmaton of a new paintng, which unscrupulously recovered tradition by opening the debate on modernity, and the awareness of the impracticability of the cultural revolution pursued in the previous two decades, Masi rediscovered "the pleasure of painting".

These meditative and silent large-scale works, mainly made with drips of colour on paper or canvas, combine the call of nature understood as uncertainty, randomness, imponderability, unpredictability of the hand, with the technological present of pixels and electron beams of television screens.

1985 also saw the end of the experience of Zona, a non-profit organisation and cultural space established in 1974, founded and run by artists and cultural operators, including Paolo Masi together with Maurizio and Massimo Nannucci, Giuseppe Chiari, Andrea Granchi, Mario Mariotti, Albert Mayr, Alberto Moretti and Gianni Pettena.

Part of the stand will be dedicated to the historical and documentary reconstruction of some of the most signifcant episodes of this reality, a veritable research and information workshop that for eleven years has played a fundamental role in opening up and connecting the city with the international art scene.