Gianfranco Baruchello's largest retrospective opens at MART Rovereto

The MART in Rovereto presents the most extensive exhibition ever dedicated to Gianfranco Baruchello (born 1924, Livorno), featuring around 300 works. The show includes sculptures on paper, paintings, avant-garde cinema, and installations such as 'L'Archivio ci Guarda' (1975–2018) and 'Acrobata Clandestino' (1988), a triptych acquired by the museum for the retrospective. 'Il Fiume' (1982–83) is displayed for the first time along a single wall spanning over 15 meters. Baruchello, whose career has been influenced by Marcel Duchamp, Jean-François Lyotard, Alain Jouffroy, and Italo Calvino, describes his work as a deliberate construction where 'every work must renounce saying' in favor of the viewer's first thought. The exhibition was curated by Maraniello, with a layout that Baruchello praises as perfectly synchronized. The show opens with 'Piante velenose, Pericolo!' (2009), which the artist says reflects how poison preserves beauty. Baruchello also discusses the state of contemporary art, criticizing the commercialism and theatricality of large-scale works at biennials, and notes that true masters now exist in literature, film, and theater. He reflects on his personal history, including his family's fascist past and his experience in the Italian army's defeat in Russia. The exhibition includes previously unseen drawings from the Fondazione Baruchello.