Piero Manai's Posthumous Exhibition Opens in Bologna

A two-venue exhibition of Piero Manai (1951-1988) opens at P420 and CAR DRDE in Bologna, organized with the artist's heirs. Manai, a painter from Bologna, focused on the human figure and especially the head as the seat of thought and anxiety, influenced by Cézanne and Bacon. His work evolved from conceptual abstraction to manipulated Polaroids and then to a convulsive, dramatic painting style that isolates figures in white space, expressing a disintegrating psychology. The artist aimed to transform the fragility of the human body into something powerful and indelible, like a monolith. The show presents works that demonstrate how his art has outlived his physical body, eternalizing the act of painting. Manai wrote that his work is 'an internal construction, anatomical and psychic, to paint a figure and flay it three times to reach a threshold.' The exhibition includes the work 'Figura' (1984, mixed media on acetate, 30x21 cm).