Giorgio Griffa

Giorgio Griffa belongs to a group of artists who transformed Italian art in the post-war era. Working with Giovanni Anselmo, Gilberto Zorio, Giulio Paolini, and Mario and Marisa Merz in mid-1960s Turin, Griffa himself received little international acclaim until well into his career—despite exhibiting at the São Paulo Bienal in 1977 and the Venice Biennale in 1978 and 1980. In the 21st century, his work has received greater recognition; he had solo exhibitions at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève in 2015 and London’s Camden Art Centre in 2018, in addition to another appearance at the Venice Biennale in 2017. Though never fully affiliated with Arte Povera, Griffa draws from the movement’s emphasis on materiality. In minimalist paintings, he reduces his materials and processes to their essential elements —raw canvas, color, and brushstrokes —and depicts rhythmic lines and squiggles made with performative gestures. His simple, unstretched canvases often reveal creases that have formed during storage, adding the suggestion of a grid to his compositions.