Valerio Adami’s Hot and Cold Art
His syncretic style melds Pop Art’s cool, outlined forms with expressionism’s figural distortions, resulting in a perturbing ambiguity.
Italian artist Valerio Adami, born in Bologna in 1935, is gaining recognition in America, despite not being as well-known as Giorgio Morandi, Alberto Burri, and Francesco Clemente. His exhibition "Alice in the Land of Violence" at David Nolan Gallery, inaugurating the gallery's new Tribeca space, marks his first New York show in over 20 years.
The exhibition features 16 paintings and 15 drawings, mostly from 1962 to 1967, with a notable exception - "Hotel Pulitzer" created this year by the 91-year-old artist, displaying no loss of sharpness.
Adami's work stems from a turbulent period in global art when styles were rapidly evolving. After studying at the Art School in Milan and moving to Paris, he met Roberto Matta and Wifredo Lam in the late 1950s. During this time, he traveled extensively to London, New York, South America, and India, forming friendships with artists, philosophers, and writers like Richard Hamilton, Jim Dine, Oskar Kokoschka, Jacques Derrida, Édouard Glissant, and Octavio Paz.
Even though his '60s work has been linked to Pop Art, Adami's inspirations and artistic dialogues transcend that association. They encompass surrealism (Matta's fragmented machinery and fanciful architecture, Lam's animal-human hybrids), expressionism (Francis Bacon and Kokoschka's distorted figures), and Pop Art (bold colors and black outlines).
Instead of succumbing to the influence of these diverse styles, Adami's unique approach during his early career allowed him to assimilate and reshape these possibilities into his own distinctive style. Unlike his fellow Americans who embraced expressive language, Adami's paintings brim with ambiguous shapes and words that defy straightforward interpretation.
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