Baruchello and Gansterer at Villa Arson: Two Generations of Notation

Villa Arson in Nice presents a double exhibition featuring Italian artist Gianfranco Baruchello (born 1924) and Austrian artist Nikolaus Gansterer (born 1974), running from March 10 to May 27, 2018. Curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, the show juxtaposes two generations linked by a shared practice of notation and sign-making. Baruchello's retrospective spans his career, including recent works from 2015, highlighting his encounters with Marcel Duchamp, Roberto Matta, Alain Jouffroy, and John Cage, who introduced him to the I Ching. His quasi-monochrome canvases, described by Bourriaud as 'archipelagos of thought,' occupy the entire Villa Arson. The exhibition also traces his influences from Italian avant-gardes: Informal painting, Nouveau Réalisme (Manzoni), Arte Povera, and Land Art via his 'Cornelia Agricola' farm, an ecological project he ran for 20 years from 1973. Gansterer's multidisciplinary installation in the Galerie Carrée echoes Baruchello's micro-details, using mural drawing, suspended structures, and video to explore perception and reality. His works include 'Figure of Thought,' 'Choreo-graphic Figures Diagrams,' and the video 'Untertagüberbau.' The exhibition reveals a similar cosmogony of signs and thoughts across generations.