Gianni Baldo Biography
Gianni Baldo was born in Reggiolo (RE) on 4 April 1944. From 1964 to 1968 he created a cycle of works (xylographs, linocuts and multi-material works) entitled "Environment", which, anticipating the environmentalist and ecological movements, denounce the already evident state of degradation of the ecosystem, showing attention to the issues of the relationship between man and nature which will characterize his creative path. The “Conflicts” cycle inspired by the Vietnam War is also from the same period. From 1969 to 1973 he created the "Musical Compositions" cycle, a stylistically compact group of works in which music is translated into a pictorial harmony which differs from previous and subsequent works for a greater serenity and which coincides with one of the happiest periods of his life characterized by his marriage to Marinella Ceriati and the birth of his son Andrea. With Marinella Ceriati, his muse, he has a partnership that is not only human but also professional and creative which lasts throughout Baldo's life. From 1979 to 1981 the forms of Baldo's painting become more essential and he creates the cycle "Aggressions and Lacerations" inspired by the war in Afghanistan of which the art critic Alessandro Righetti underlines the high and severe moral message beyond ideologies, which always places itself on the side of man and the sacredness of life. In 1981, in an exhibition at the Teatro Minimo gallery in Mantua, he proposed a new cycle "Situations, Traces, Relationships" in which the works are charged with typical moods of contemporary man such as restlessness, a sense of defeat, anxiety and represents a crucial turning point for the subsequent evolution of his art. In this period he began his activity as a cultural promoter which manifested itself in the following decades with a continuous and intense activity as creator and organizer of numerous personal and collective exhibitions in central-northern Italy. In 1985 the province, the EPT and the municipality of Reggio Emilia dedicated an anthological exhibition to him in the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo to celebrate his twenty years of activity, with a presentation by the art critic Franco Solmi. In the second half of the Eighties he created the cycles “Il tempo dell'anguish” (exhibited in Piombino (LI) and Mirandola (MO)) in 1988 and “Sparci nella memoria” in 1989 of which Marzio Dall'Acqua wrote: “ Give order to the world, giving it a clear and legible form seems to be the task that Baldo has taken on. In this "work" the dominion of matter is such that the symbols ... lose their disruptive, subversive charge to bend to a language which is first of all rigorous construction, safe, rigid and iron-clad layout safeguarding an aesthetic that is everything dominates, everything bends, to a pleasure which is essentially that of artistic creation”. Again in the wake of his environmental sensitivity in 1989 he was the creator and promoter of the exhibition “From the Po to the Adriatic, a cry” presented by the ethologist Giorgio Celli. From 1989 to 1990 he created the cycle "The experiences of man" which he exhibited in 1991 in the rooms of the Exedra of Palazzo Ducale in Mantua. During the nineties the artist carried out a particularly intense exhibition activity, conceiving and participating in exhibitions in Brescia, Empoli, L'Aquila, La Spezia, Lissone, Milan, Mantua, Monza, Florence, Foggia, Rome, Seregno, Trento and Trieste and in numerous locations throughout Italy. In 1991 he created a large cycle of works on the Gulf War; again in the same year he exhibited his multi-material works in the exhibition “Beyond the boundaries of fog. Three generations of three provinces compared" by the art critic Marzio Dall'Acqua. In 1993, together with Giuseppe Gorni and Arnaldo Bartoli, he exhibited a large number of graphic works, summarizing his research as a graphic designer in the period from 1978 to 1990, in the exhibition “La graziosa gouge” curated by Marzio Dall'Acqua. In 1994 the municipality of Quattro Castella (RE) dedicated the personal exhibition “Conflitti 1964 -1984” to him, which summarizes works inspired by the wars of Vietnam, Afghanistan and the Gulf. In the catalogue, Vittorio Cavicchioni writes: "...Baldo was a loner who, although partly sharing the action of the realist movement, carried out courageous interventions in society which should not remain modest illustrative writings but, on the contrary, had to go hand in hand with other interventions, equally incisive, in the field of aesthetics... for its effectiveness, its ability to communicate, for its original way of expressing itself, on the table with poor finds or second-hand material; we can honestly say that Baldo's work then took place in the birth of the avant-garde and we regret not having discovered and appreciated it as it should have". In the same year the Province and the Municipality of Reggio Emilia together with the Municipality of Reggiolo dedicated to him the exhibition “Gianni Baldo, witness of time” curated by the art critic Giorgio Segato, in which the works of two new cycles “Vorrei. ..” and “Where were the forests”. In the catalog Giorgio Segato writes: "... Baldo is an artist who aims to be a witness of his time: not a tormented truth seeker or a stammering protester, but rather someone who feels and says with genuine immediacy which side he is and must be on , which way you shouldn't go. The figures in the story are very few, cut out, juxtaposed, so that they do not share the same nature as the background, figures of a 'theater' of life that Baldo captures with an introspective gaze, identifying what is the true drama of the contemporary world: separateness, marginalization". In 1998, on the occasion of the personal exhibition in Bondeno (FE) at the Casa Società Operaia he presented the monograph “Gianni Baldo. Harmony of communicating signs” which documents thirty years of his artistic research, with texts by Dino Pasquali and Alessandro Righetti. In 1999 he edited the book "Paths in art, reviews from 1989 to 1999" with a presentation by Alfredo Gianolio and critical texts by: Antonio Carbè, Giorgio Celli, Marzio Dall'Acqua, Werther Gorni, Benvenuto Guerra, Federico Napoli, Dino Pasquali , Franco Pone, Alessandro Righetti, Enzo Santese and Giorgio Segato; the book documents the forty-one contemporary art exhibitions conceived and organized by Gianni Baldo from 1989 to 1999, in which he involved 136 artists of three generations from all over Italy. In 2000 at Palazzo Ceni in Medole (MN) he presented a group of multi-material sculptures created from 1989 to 2000 in the exhibition “Sculpture – Seven variations on the body” which represents an anthology of the sculptor's activity. In 2003, on the occasion of the personal exhibition at the Torre Civica in Medole (MN), the monograph “Gianni Baldo. An assiduously engraved history”, which documents artistic research in graphics from 1968 to 2003. In 2006 the solo exhibition “Gianni Baldo. The silence of the leaves” is a new turning point in the artist's pictorial activity and is presented at the same time as the book “Gianni Ceresini and Gianni Baldo. The importance of an encounter” which highlights the artist's strong partnership with the writer Gianni Ceresini. In 2009, in the Fancelli hall of the medieval fortress of Reggiolo, he created the personal exhibition "Legati a due filo" curated by the art historian Sabrina Arosio.
