Emilio Isgrò

The Fondazione Giorgio Cini exhibition season continues with a major new retrospective show in autumn: Emilio Isgrò (14 September to 24 November 2019). Curated by Germano Celant, in collaboration with the artist and the Emilio Isgrò Archive, the exhibition is a broad survey reconstructing Isgrò’s creative and aesthetic journey, spanning from the 1960s to the present day. The rich selection of works begins with the first erasures of books (1964) and continues with poems on emulsified canvases
and the Storie rosse (Red Stories) to arrive at the imposing, complex series of texts erased in the historic volumes of the Enciclopedia Treccani (1970) and in the more recent ethnic volumes of the Codici ottomani (Ottoman Codices, 2010).
Isgrò’s experimental and linguistic journey will be installed in a new, spectacular way in an Emilio Isgro, Ottoman Codex of Solitude, 2010, acrylic on book in wood box and plexiglass
all-encompassing architectural setting. The rooms in the Napoleonic Wing of the Fondazione Cini will have additional transversal and diagonal partitions to break up and modify the space,
almost as if they were lines on a sheet of paper. They will in fact serve as paper supports for the results of a new enormous operation of erasure, conducted once again on literary material. For
the visitor, it will be like entering a large book, visually modified by the artist.
The companion book to the exhibition, published by Treccani, includes erased pages from Moby Dick, a conversation between the artist and the curator, and an extensive illustrated chronology
exploring and documenting Isgrò’s personal and professional journey.
The exhibition is being staged with the support of Intesa Sanpaolo – Direzione Arte, Cultura e Beni Storici nell’Ambito di Progetto Cultura.