Casey Kaplan
INVITO 2022 EXHIBITION
ACACIA AWARD BESTOWED TO DIEGO PERRONE
Museo del Novecento
22 March – 25 September 2022
an exhibition curated by Gemma De Angelis Testa and Iolanda Ratti
Concurrently with MIART and Art Week 2022 promoted by the City of Milan, Councillorship of Culture, the Museo del Novecento and ACACIA (Friends of Italian Contemporary Art Association) present INVITO 2022, an exhibit devoted to the winning artist of the ACACIA Awards, which for the seventh year are hosted in the halls of the Museum, thus strengthening a fortunate private-public partnership with the goal of conserving and consolidating the study of recent artistic explorations.
The recipient of the 2022 edition is Diego Perrone (Asti, 1970), an artist acclaimed both in Italy and abroad; his featured works – Untitled (2021) and Untitled (2022) – will become part of the ACACIA Collection.
Through the use of diverse materials and techniques, including video, photography, painting, sculpture, and drawing, the artist superimposes images of people, places, animals, and objects, bringing out unexpected and alienating features. This process is the fruit of a rigorous and constant ‘alteration’ that leads viewers toward a comparison with their own cultural structures. A multitude of patterns take shape in fused glass sculptures and works on paper, covered with ballpoint pen marks that repeatedly and obsessively run over the surface of the sheet. The artist has worked on the series of drawings constantly over the course of the years, in a consistent and relentless experimentation.
The artist traces a thick web of marks on the white background with regular and precise movements of his wrist, developing a dense and restless surface. Ink marks overlap in continuous signs; if these marks are initially almost transparent, they then become an increasingly serried intertwining, creating areas of depth that lend an almost sculptural strength to the work. In these two works, the artist seems to depict two human faces, paying particular attention to the area of the auditory canal, which is found in many of his other works. The ear allows us to transform sounds and stimuli from the outside world into electrical impulses, thoughts, sensations, and emotions.
Diego Perroni’s oeuvre joins works by Mario Airò, Rosa Barba, Rossella Biscotti, Monica Bonvicini, Gianni Caravaggio, Maurizio Cattelan, Loris Cecchini, Roberto Cuoghi, Rä di Martino, Lara Favaretto, Linda Fregni Nagler, Francesco Gennari, Sabrina Mezzaqui, Marzia Migliora, Adrian Paci, Paola Pivi, Marinella Senatore, Luca Trevisani, Grazia Toderi, Tatiana Trouvé, Marcella Vanzo, Nico Vascellari, Francesco Vezzoli, which were donated to the Museo del Novecento by the ACACIA Association.
Diego Perrone (Asti, 1970)
Diego Perrone was born in Asti in 1970, he lives and works in Milan and Berlin. He studied at the Brera Academy in Milan under Luciano Fabro, and then in Bologna, where he made the acquaintance of Alberto Garutti. His artistic production combines the free use of diverse techniques, including sculpture, drawing, glass, video, and photography, with a multiplicity of poetic intuitions that allow him to express his signature interpretation of icons from tradition, folkloric culture, and recent history. A series of elements and symbols linked to the artist’s rural origins are often found in his very personal vision of artistic imagery.
His works are displayed in many major museums worldwide, including MAXXI in Rome, Museion in Bolzano, Guggenheim in New York, and Centre Pompidou in Paris. Perrone has taken part in important international art events: the 50th Venice Art Biennale (2003), the 11th Triennale-India in New Delhi (2005), the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2005), the 4th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2006), and the 53rd Venice Art Biennale (2009). He exhibited his works in numerous museums, including Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Turin, Museo MAN in Nuoro, Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, PAC Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, GAM in Milan, and Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
Image: Diego Perrone, Untitled, 2021, Biro on paper