Pier Paolo Calzolari

Pier Paolo Calzolari, born in 1943, lives and works in Portugal and Italy. He was trained in Bologna, where he held his first solo exhibition in 1965 at the Bentivoglio Study Room. From the following year, he abandoned the traditional pictorial techniques and began to use common objects and materials, even if not in the artistic field, such as fire, ice, lead, tin, salt, moss, tobacco which, in this way, knew a second life. In 1967, he moved to Urbino and in 1972, Calzolari moved between Paris, New York and Berlin. During his stay in Urbino he also worked in the sphere of dance and 1972, the artist focused on the study of painting in a deeply unconventional way by juxtaposing pictorial signs with real objects, such as small paper boats or small trains moving along endlessly repeated paths. He was present at the Venice Biennale Internazionale d’Arte in the years 1978, 1980 and 1990. In 1992, he took part in Documenta IX in Kassel. In 1994, an important retrospective was dedicated to him at the Jeu de Paume National Gallery in Paris and the Rivoli Castle in Turin. Continuing to explore his interest in light, matter and space-time through sculpture, installation and performance, Calzolari has been making paintings and drawings since the 1960s which, although less well known, represent a characteristic and a fundamental component of his practice. Today, Pier Paolo Calzolari is represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Kamel Mennour, Paris. His latest retrospective, titled Painting as a Butterfly, was at Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina in Naples from June 8 - September 30, 2019.