{"id":14711,"date":"2025-01-22T18:12:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T17:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/colomboarte.com\/arduino-cantafora-anamnesi\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T12:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T11:37:11","slug":"arduino-cantafora-anamnesi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/colomboarte.com\/en\/arduino-cantafora-anamnesi\/","title":{"rendered":"Arduino Cantafora – Anamnesi"},"content":{"rendered":"
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20 February \u2013 29 March 2025<\/p>\n

Opening: Thursday 20 February from 18.30<\/p>\n

Arduino Cantafora – Anamnesi<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

curated by Ivan Quaroni<\/p>\n

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Antonio Colombo<\/strong> presents Anamnesi<\/em><\/strong>, a solo show by Arduino Cant\u00e0fora<\/strong> curated by Ivan Quaroni. The exhibition, which opens on Thursday 20 February 2025, is a chance to discover the work of an artist who with great originality intertwines the art of drawing and painting with the representation of architecture and memory. <\/p>\n

The title of the exhibition, Anamnesi, refers to the concepts of reminiscence and recollection, central to the artist\u2019s pictorial practice. \u201cFor me, memory is also anamnesis, a curing remembrance,\u201d Cant\u00e0fora says, emphasizing the central role of drawing as a tool of reflection and comprehension of the real. <\/p>\n

Besides two large works from the past \u2013 La citt\u00e0 banale<\/em> (The Banal City, 1980) and Stanza di Citt\u00e0 \u2013 Roma<\/em> (City Room \u2013 Rome, 1983), presented respectively at the Venice Architecture Biennale <\/em>in 1980 and at the Venice Art Biennale<\/em> in 1984 \u2013 the show features a selection of more recent pieces, created from 2020 to 2025, depicting everyday locations like domestic interiors, building entrances, stairwells and urban corners, transformed into representations that reveal an intense focus on details and the character of spaces. Cant\u00e0fora\u2019s painting, in fact, embodies an ability to combine analytical precision and imagination in visual narratives filled by a sense of expectation. <\/p>\n

A student and collaborator of Aldo Rossi, Cant\u00e0fora has always stood out for the rigor and sensitivity with which he interprets architecture, objects and urban spaces. His artistic research, influenced by the traditions in painting that range from Lombardy in the 1500s and 1600s to Divisionism, from Purism to the Metaphysical, reflects painstaking attention to detail and suspended atmospheres, reminders of Renaissance piazzas and metaphysical compositions. <\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text]

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ARDUINO CANTAFORA<\/strong> was born in Milan in 1945. From a very young age he nurtured a curiosity for organic forms, anatomy and entomology, passions that remained alive throughout his architectural studies. He discovered very early the language of drawing, which became his privileged tool for capturing forms. Cantafora begun his career as a painter by tackling the thorny technical challenge of oil painting, becoming a copyist of Caravaggio. From that moment, the craftmanship and artisanal pleasure of painting would never abandon him.
\nWhile studying architecture at Politecnico di Milan, he perfected the pictorial representation of the architecture of historical cities. His interpretations revolve around shadow and light, in a faithfully Caravaggesque inspiration. The skills he matured in these years will be invaluable during his collaboration with architect Aldo Rossi (1973-1978), but they will also influence his future work, dominated by the translation of architecture into painting. Nel 1973, Cant\u00e0fora espone alla Triennale di Milano La Citt\u00e0 analoga<\/em>, attualmente di propriet\u00e0 del Museo del Novecento del capoluogo lombardo. This painting became the manifesto of La Tendenza<\/em>, an architectural movement that reintegrates elements of 20th-century European Rationalism by emphasizing the history of places as central to projects. In 2012, La Tendenza<\/em> was the subject of a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Cantafora participated again in the Milan Triennale in 1981 and 1988. He also took part in the Biennale di Architettura in Venice in 1978 and 1980, and in the Biennale d\u2019Arte in 1984. Between 1985 and 1986, he was in Berlin at the invitiation of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). The city inspired him to create a series of paintings that were exhibited at the Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum in Berlin. Le due grandi tele, Das andere Berlin, 1984<\/em> saranno acquisite, nel 2006, dal Museo Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (MNAM) al Centre Georges Pompidou di Parigi. These two paintings are part of the 89 works by Cantafora in the collection of the museum. During the 1990s, Cantafora conceived several set designs for La Scala in Milan and for other prestigious venues such as the Aix-en-Provence Festival. His work as a set designer earned him the second place of the Ubu Prize, Italy\u2019s most important theatre award. Tra il 2022 e il 2023, \u00e8 invitato a due importanti mostre pubbliche: Architectures impossibles<\/em> al Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-arts di Nancy e Un tiempo propio<\/em> al Centre Pompidou di Malaga, dove sono esposte due grandi tele berlinesi della collezione del Centro Pompidou di Parigi.
\nArduino Cant\u00e0fora \u00e8 stato professore di architettura all’Universit\u00e0 di Venezia (IUAV) dal 1982 al 1986, all’Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (AAM) dal 1998 al 2011 e “visiting professor” alla Yale University nel 1988. In 1989 he was appointed full professor at the Ecole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne (EPFL), where he was chairman of the Department of Visual Representation. He is honorary professor at EPFL since 2011. He is the author of several publications on architecture and education, as well as an autobiographical novel and short stories published by Einaudi. Since 2016 he collaborates with Antonio Colombo\u2019s gallery in Milan, where he exhibited in the show Case Cose Citt\u00e0<\/em> with Alessandro Mendini, and in 2021 he was part of the group show In the Garden of Eden. A landscape of things with Alessandro Mendini and friends <\/em>.<\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text]

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