Augusto Sciacca Biography
Painter, set designer and publicist, born in Itala (ME) in 1945, he has been one of the most significant and original exponents of the Italian art scene for years. Graduated in architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan, he trained in the conceptual climate of the 1970s, soon arriving at his own personal expressive concept, characterized by strong and intense wide-ranging experimentation. His artistic research is marked by a rigorous reflection on man in his existential dimension and in his relationship with the infinitude of the cosmos, and is expressed in large pictorial cycles, where the use of light and color predominates, together with the valorisation of the materials and supports used. From his vigorous and dynamic painting, variously intertwined with experiments and forays into other figurative fields and other executive techniques, an extremely evocative and personal vision emerges, supported by a high stylistic awareness and a constant search for synthesis. After his debut in Messina in 1966, he exhibited in numerous personal and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad. From the 70s are the aesthetic projects (some with the use of lasers) and the maps and graffiti on stamped sackcloth; followed by flans, sextuples and maps on polythene, then the season of sidereal projects, islands and maps of the universes, arriving at the end of the 1990s at a painting with "broad rhythms and compositions of vast and solemn scope", as in the "Cosmogonies", where he addresses and explores his favorite themes, those of Time and Space, also highlighted in the "artists' books", such as the "Cronogenesis" cycle (1990-1995), "The Sun of Ulysses" (1995), “Il Tempo o il Vento” (1996), and the vast cycle of 2005, with the “lead books”, the “golden book – Del Sublime”, “Ricordo”, “La fold – Homage to Deleuze” and “Reminder” of 2005/2006. The same themes are the basis of his research of the late nineties "Time and Myth" with at the center of the investigation the Light in time and space, in its becoming and in its composition through the four primordial elements: water, air , earth, fire. Light, as a visible expression of the Mystery, is an essential element of the five large stained glass windows created by the artist in 2000 for the private chapel of a nunnery near Bergamo. In the following years Sciacca focused his attention on the theme of violence, addressed in its various aspects, mythological, historical, social and religious, with precise references to what concerns contemporary reality: a theme, moreover, already investigated since the seventies, which will culminate in a vast cycle, from which signs of hope and reconciliation clearly emerge, together with the lacerations of history, and which will constitute the essence of the 2006 “Innocenza and Pietas” exhibition at the Museo della Permanente in Milan. Among the many awards attributed to the artist: in 2002 the Hungarian Minister of Culture, the writer Gábor Görgey, awarded him as "Central European Artist"; the same year, in Rome, he was awarded the "Antonello da Messina" prize. In 2004 he was awarded the “Sant'Agostino City of Bergamo Award”. In 2008, for artistic merits, he received the nomination as Commander of Merit of the Italian Republic. He has held numerous conferences on the themes of modern and contemporary art and has also been a promoter and organizer of conferences and debates. He has collaborated, for the art sector, with various magazines and newspapers, including "La Gazzetta del Sud", "Avvenire", "Imprenditoriali", "RAI Tre", "La nostra Domenica" and "L'Eco di Bergamo”, with which he still collaborates. He was a member of the Management Committee of the Carrara Academy of Bergamo, appointed by the Municipality of Bergamo, from 1980 to 1985; he was part of the Civic Culture Committee - Visual Arts Sector of the Culture Department of the Municipality of Bergamo from 1995 to 1999; he was also part of the Scientific Committee of the Competition – “Evaristo Baschenis” Prize announced by Credito Bergamasco in 1997. Teacher of the Chair of Painting at the “Lorenzo Lotto” Academy in Bergamo from 2001 to 2003. President of the Friends of the Carrara Academy Association of Bergamo from 2003 to 2004. Since 2004 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo.
