Mimmo Paladino

Alan Cristea Gallery presents two exhibitions celebrating the work of Italian artist and founding figure of the Transavanguardia, Mimmo Paladino. At 31 Cork Street, a new body of work conceived specifically for this exhibition and at 34 Cork Street a survey of editions from over the course of the past six years.

The exhibition at 31 Cork Steet brings together three elements, Le Strade di Roma, Mattinate (Puglia Suite), and Le Città Invisibili. Mattinate (Puglia Suite) and Le Strade di Roma are two series of drawings that represent two very different areas of Paladino's oeuvre. The playful, child-like notations in Mattinate, sketched in rainbow hues, appear almost as if blown onto the paper by a gust of wind. In contrast, the haunting shadowy heads in Le Strade di Roma hint at an altogether darker, more sinister realm, with shadowy forms and skeletal figures scratched into the surrounding white frames. The large-scale installation, Le Città Invisibili, where 89 images sketched onto small blocks are placed like satellites around a central head, might be interpreted as a reaffirmation of the imaginative, non-rational unity underlying the fragmentation in Paladino's work.

Paladino's first solo exhibition was held at the Studio Oggetto, Caserta in 1969. In 1980 he participated in the Aperto '80 at the Venice Biennial along with Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and Nicola De Maria (leaders of the Transavantgarde movment). A major retrospective of his work was held in Munich at the Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in 1985. Other major solo exhibitions include Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Forte Belvedere, Florence in 1993, Scuderie di Palazzo Reale, Piazza del Plebiscito and Villa Pignatelli, Naples 1995-6, South London Gallery 1999, Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy 2002-03 and the Estorick Collection, London in 2004.

Paladino's work is held in major public collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Tate Collection, London the Kunstmuseum, Basel, the Nationalgalerie, Berlin and the Australian National Gallery, Canberra. His interest in the relationship between visual art and sound led him to collaborate with musician Brian Eno, firstly on an installation for the Roundhouse, London in 1999 and again on a site-specific work for the Museo dell'Ara Pacis, Rome in 2008.

The Alan Cristea Gallery is the exclusive distributor of Mimmo Paladino's editions worldwide.