Emilio Vedova | Artists | Gori Collection

Emilio Vedova (Venezia, 1919 – Venezia, 2006)

The friendship between Giuliano Gori and Emilio Vedova began in the post-war years, especially during the editions of the Venice Biennale; on those occasions the young Tuscan collector visited the artist’s studio and was allowed to view his personal archiveof early drawings that revealed the figurative roots of his abstract work. During one of these visits, the painting *Nello studio* (1956), described by the artist as his last figurative work, was acquired by the Gori Collection.

In 1985, after the fattoria building had recently been restored, Emilio Vedova arrived at Celle — at the height of his career’s spatial investigation, as exemplified by the *Plurimi* series –to carry out a series of works conceived to be physically traversed. Inside the fattoria’swest tower, he chose three adjacent agricultural spaces illuminated by natural light from large semicircular windows. Inspired by these window shapes, he decided to double the dimensions of the semicircle to create enormous wooden disks that he would transform via his painterly gesture. Vedova recounts the discovery in a text about the work titled *Non dove* (“Not where”): “When Gori invited me to take possession of a space/intervention – as is in the programs of his poetics – with an unpublished contribution, immediately: the DISKS!”

Indeed, the artist painted both sides of the wooden disks, which match the dimensions of the windows in the rooms that originated them. The visitor’s itinerary is carefully controlled by the artist, who ingeniously knocked down the central part of a dividing wall, effectively creating a “breach” through which one can now glimpse the disks in the adjacent space.

“Emilio Vedova, the oldest member of the interior guests, is welcomed on the second floor. With a stroke of genius, he finds the way to ideallybreak through the narrow bounds of the room… The Venetian artist concentrates his painting into a disk shape, a dimension that accompanies very well the wavering forms painted inside, functioning as a limit that doesn’t limit, as a closure that opens rather than closes. Moreover, some of these disks are driven into the wall giving the illusion of continuation, of going beyond the boundaries, as if these did not existin their heavy certainty.” — Renato Barilli, “A Perfect Harmony between Interior and Exterior: The Presence of Italian Artists in the Fattoria di Celle” in *Arte Ambientale*, Umberto Allemandi& Co., Turin, 1993, p.15.

Works by the artist

Not where

For more info:

fondazionevedova.org