ARCO Lisboa 2022

Our project for ARCO Lisboa 2022 brings together a selection of works by two of the most consolidated artists of our gallery: Giorgio Griffa and Claude Viallat. This spring our gallery has dedicated a duo show to these two artists, whose dialogue is being exhibited again at ARCO Lisboa 2022.

Giorgio Griffa (Torino, 1936) came to visit us in Madrid in the spring of 2010, in preparation for his first solo exhibition in our gallery. Taking a silent walk through the city with this character of elongated silhouette, who walked straight as a sail, proved surprising. He noted the movement of the leaves in the trees, and the neat arrangement of napkins placed in a restaurant cupboard. He always made reference to rhythms and repetition, which according to him are present in everything that surrounds us. When I once asked him about the artists who had influenced him in his life, he told me about the French group Support-Surfaces, and Claude Viallat (Nîmes, 1936). I got to know his work thanks to Griffa. Years later, in September 2017, we opened the gallery season with a solo show dedicated to his work.

Five years further on, we set ourselves the challenge of bringing together the work of these two artists between whom, in addition to mutual admiration, there are strong connections. The concept of repetition is probably the most obvious, but there is also their attention to colour, supports and rhythms in their compositions, as well as the meaning they give to their creations. They never seek to represent: just to paint.

But undoubtedly the very special value or fascination of this series of exhibitions comes from the fact that both painters took part in the selection of works, each of them picking out from their most recent output those works which show a certain complementarity with the works of the other.