Sergio Vacchi – the Whims

The collection is dedicated to a book, entitled The Whims, conceived and published in 1979 by Giulio Bargellini, a great friend and historical collector of Sergio Vacchi’s works.

 

Realized on Japanese paper in limited edition, the book was born from a series of works of equal size created by the artist in 1976, and it is accompanied by several poems by Italian intellectual as Dario Bellezza, Giuliana Calandra, Piera Degli Esposti, Andrea B. Del Guercio, Cesare Garboli, Elio Petri, Amelia Rosselli, Roberto Roversi, Roberto Sanesi, Leonardo Sciascia, Enzo Siciliano, Roberto Tassi, Paolo Volponi.

In the explicit quotation of the homonymous series by Goya, Vacchi echoes the themes of death, eccentricity and irrational that we invariably find in his paintings, which are filled with presences and surreal apparitions, alluring or disturbing, suspended in chromatic, indefinable and dismayed atmospheres, dumbfounded in the enigma of secret bonds between everyday objects, animals, bodies.

 

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Castenaso, Bologna, in 1925, Sergio Vacchi is considered one of the historical masters of Informal Art, but in his expressive repertoire thickens an endless variety of languages and subjects. His research, at the beginning close to the results of Post- Cubism, has been later linked to the Informal experience, that in the Fifties found in Bologna some of the most important leading figures, such as the critic Francesco Arcangeli. Later, after he moved to Rome, his painting has expressed a desire of a more definite representation, assuming visionary results with explicit surreal features. His long exhibition career, marked moreover by awards and several participation at the Venice Biennale, it now documented also by a foundation dedicated to him.