Enzo Cacciola. B in Arenzano, Genoa, 1945. He lives and works at Rocca Grimalda, (AL), IT.
He held his first solo exhibition in 1971 in Genoa at the La Bertesca Gallery, focusing on the dynamics between plane, form, and colour. In 1973, he began working with new materials as alternatives to oil on canvas and created his first material-based pieces, examining exclusively the surface and its linguistic elements. In June 1975, he took part in the exhibition Analytical Painting curated by Klaus Honnef and Catherine Millet, presenting works in cement that explored the spatial issues posed by the materiality of the artwork. His participation in Documenta 6 (Kassel, 1977) marked a partial break from his previous work, due to a conceptual reinterpretation of the role (and function) of the artist. Beginning in 1979, on this foundation, he embarked on a path of reflection and research that led him to work and exhibit overseas, including in Washington, Mexico City, and Panama City. In 1981, he engaged with the themes of the Transavanguardia movement by participating in the exhibition Rooted Painting curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, opening up to figuration, though filtered and expressed mainly in conceptual terms. A further step toward the interpenetration of figurative and conceptual art was taken with the Short Memory Painting project (Milan, 1982), curated by Viana Conti, which documented the artist’s “incursions” into 19th- and 20th-century masterpieces, inserting his figure and perspective within them.
See Enzo Cacciola’s selected exhibitions.