Fernando Picenni Biography
Bergamo, 1929. In the second half of the fifties he increasingly deepened his relationship with painting, which led him to dedicate himself entirely to art in 1959. These were the years of frequenting the Bar Giamaica, of the attraction for Sironi and for the Nicolas De Stael's painful plastic research. Among the artists of his generation he frequented Emilio Tadini ("who at that time was mainly a highly cultured critic"), Piero Manzoni ("He seemed like a bricklayer to me, with his military clothes, modest and simple air, which did not allow any certainly the idea of an intellectual: mysteries of appearances!”), Enrico Castellani, the (“excited”) Tancredi and formed a deep friendship with Gianfranco Ferroni, Dadamaino and the philosopher Sossio Giametta, cultural heir of Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari in arrangement of the corpus of Nietzsche's works. In 1968 it was the first exhibition at the Galleria Morone 6 in Milan, with the catalog edited by Mario de Micheli ("He was solemn and cathedratic in his speech, as if he were busy rounding out bombastic words. But he was good"); the second will be in 1970, this time with a catalog edited by Vittorio Fagone. In 1970 he was invited to the exhibition “Pittura 70. L'Immagine Attiva” at the Casa del Mantegna in Mantua, with Forgioli, Madella, Olivieri, Vago, his friend Raciti and others. Between 1976 and 1977 Picenni's art veers towards geometric abstraction: the new creative streak is overwhelming, the master seems to renounce lyrical evocation, relying on a rationality full of metaphorical values. It will be the philosopher Sossio Giametta, a lifelong friend, who will find, on the occasion of the solo show at the Athena Gallery in Meda, how in the new cycle of works Picenni's art "has become clear, dilated, made of space, of line, of intellect". Between 1978 and 1983 Picenni created the Constructions, which he then resumed between 1995 and 1998 ("I felt the need to expand the operational field of the painting, that is, its tight dimension, closed by the edges, to even abandon the canvas to look for a vast, non-enclosing spatiality to conquer the wall"). The Constructions are large works made mostly with variously shaped and painted wood, fixed to the wall (some from the wall are extended onto the floor), in which the master anticipates every concept of "installation", a term destined to great success ("He came to see my Costruzioni Pardi, sent by Marconi: I think he treasured it"). Picenni returns to painting, to his lyrical plasticism, enriched by his geometric experience. In 1988, Elena Pontiggia, in the catalog for the exhibition at Studio 111 in Milan, talks about the "dream of painting". In 1995 seven Constructions were exhibited at the Bertolt Brecht Cultural Circle in Milan. In 1999 the San Fedele Gallery exhibited paintings and four Constructions. In 2003, on the occasion of the exhibition at the Folini Gallery in Chiasso, the Mazzotta publisher promoted a catalog dedicated to recent works on canvas, edited by Elena Pontiggia, with texts by Domenico D'Oora and Meeten Nasr. In 2004 the second Mazzotta volume was published, dedicated to Construction, again edited by Elena Pontiggia. In the same year, a photograph of Picenni was included, alongside that of Piero Manzoni, in the volume Storia d'Italia, L'Immagine Fotografica (edited by Uliano Lucas), Einaudi Editore. In 2005 there was an exhibition at the PoliArt Gallery in Milan, which had already taken an interest in his work for years. On the occasion of the exhibition at PoliArt, the composer Paola Samoggia dedicated a musical snapshot to him, entitled Berceuse luisante, fascinated by the Picennian light of these years. From 2006 is the great anthology at the National Museum of Villa Pisani in Strà, curated by Leonardo Conti and Giovanni Granzotto, with a long poem by Elisabetta Gennasi (...They push around lazy gleams;/over there,/bound to the night/edges of sky …). In 2007 for Rosler Italiana, commissioned by the important collector Alessandro Giussani, he created the engraving “In cruna dorata il filo Amore”. The exhibition at the GAM Spazio Ex Pescherie in Cesena is dedicated to recent years, in which a new light fills Picenni's painting ("An ignition has occurred in these years, perhaps it is an inner joy, beyond the edges of suffering: Pinuccia is better. I believe that if someone has something to say, their painting makes you understand").
