Pablo Echaurren stars in Siena with a solo exhibition at the Briganti Library

PaginEchaurren is the exhibition open from Dec. 9, 2019, to March 5, 2020, which, as part of the articulated topic of the ’artist’s book,’ recently explored in depth in the initiatives of the Briganti Library and Photo Library in Siena, encompasses a selection of various works by the Roman artist Pablo Echaurren (Rome, 1951), with a multifaceted and nonconformist personality, who has become an indispensable generational model for many. Described by critics as an “eclectic genius,” Echaurren is characterized through painting, illustration, graphic novels, collage, ceramics, textiles, jewelry, videos, music, and book writing, in a concept of art felt as “viral.” More than forty works on paper are presented in the exhibition, chosen from a time span ranging from the 1970s to the present.

The exhibition, hosted in the premises of the Briganti Library (inside the Santa Maria della Scala complex) opens with the works of the very young Pablo, who established himself with a micro-painting in watercolor, executed within small squares, arranged sequentially, flanked by original collages, and last but not least, by a selection of his vast production as an illustrator, of covers for historical magazines and editorial series (his is the famous cover of Porci con le ali of 1976), of comic-strip short stories, up to recent book-books. If the early supporters of newcomer Pablo Echeurren include artist Gianfranco Baruchello and gallery owner Arturo Schwarz, among the first scholars to point out the value of his work, we find not only Emilio Villa, Henry Martin, Achille Bonito Oliva, but also Giuliano Briganti, at the time a professor of art history at theUniversity of Siena. The latter would leave some writings on the promising artist, of which we recall Segnalati Bolaffi 1973 and a review in La Repubblica, February 27, 1976. Many others would later write about him, including Renato Barilli, Maurizio Calvesi, Paola Pallottino and Vincenzo Mollica.

Pablo Echaurren around 1970 had already fine-tuned his own stylistic signature, making his first “quadratini,” small watercolors and enamels. Between 1973 and 1975 he exhibited in Basel, Philadelphia, Zurich, Berlin, New York, Brussels and in 1975 at the Paris Biennale. In 1976 he uses the “squares” formula for the cover image of the Savelli publishing house’s volumes of which Pigs with Wings remains a kind of generational icon.

He soon decided it was time to abandon the role of “artist” and participated in the experience of the so-called “metropolitan Indians,” the ironic and creative current of the protest movement that arose in 1977. Today Echaurren’s material connected with the “Indians” experience is collected at Yale University’s Beinecke Library.

Since the 1980s his production has been increasingly distinguished by a contamination of high and low, of pure art and applied art.

The latest solo exhibitions have all been held in public and museum spaces: Chiostro del Bramante (Rome 2004), Magazzini del Sale (Siena 2008), Auditorium Parco della musica (Rome 2006 and 2009), MACRO (Rome 2011), Palazzo Cipolla-Museo Fondazione Roma (Rome 2010-2011), MAR (Ravenna 2011), Fondazione Querini Stampalia (Venice 2013), Estorick Collection (London 2014), Galleria Nazionale d’modern and contemporary art (Rome 2015-2016), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes MNBA (Santiago de Chile 2016), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo MAC (Santiago de Chile 2016), Scala Contarini del Bovolo (Venice 2017), Museo in Trastevere (Rome 2017), Palazzo Platamone (Catania 2017), MART (Rovereto 2019).

For all information you can visit the official website of the Santa Maria della Scala complex.

Pictured: Pablo Echaurren, The World Upside Down (1991), acrylic on paper, 100x100 cm. Private collection.

Pablo Echaurren stars in Siena with a solo exhibition at the Briganti Library

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