Gary Kuehn Il delitto del praticante, 2018

Il diletto del praticante is the first solo exhibition in an Italian museum of the American sculptor Gary Kuehn (Plainfield, New Jersey, 1939), paying tribute to the artist’s original path, whose raw and radical language, developed from a reflection on the physicality of materials, played a significant role in the emergence of a new conception of sculpture, equidistant from both the subjectivism of expressionist abstraction and the objectivity and geometric rigour of minimalism.

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue ( published by Mousse Publishing in collaboration with GAMeC Books, with texts by Alex Bacon, Lorenzo Giusti, David Komary and a conversation between Gary Kuehn and Sara Fumagalli) and two images printed on the hand press in  limited editions produced by A14.

Limited edition of 28 copies numbered 1 to 28 in Arabic numerals + 3 artist's proofs signed as A.P.

Plate: copper plate 25.5 x 25.5 cm
Technique: UV exposure on the plate, etched with three different bitings in aquatint and printed in one colour
Paper: Hahnemühle natural white 100% cotton 300g, size 56 x 56 cm

Limited edition of 28 copies numbered 1 to 28 in Arabic numerals + 3 artist's proofs signed as A.P.

Plates: 1 MDF 40.6 x 40.6 cm; 1 brass plate 40.6 x 40.6 cm
Technique: Double-pass printing. First pass in white, rolled onto the brass plate.
Second pass in black, rolled with the MDF template.
Paper: Hahnemühle natural white 100% cotton 300g, size 56x56 cm

Through four sections, divided between the exhibition spaces of the Galleria and the prestigious Sala delle Capriate in the ancient Palazzo della Ragione in Bergamo, the exhibition presents a significant group of about 70 works, among the most important of the artist’s output: sculptures, drawings, paintings and installations made since the early 1960s, tracing a layered path – including a series of new works produced especially for this occasion – aimed at conveying the stylistic evolution of Kuehn’s language and highlighting the surprising topicality of his work.

The historic Palazzo della Ragione – built at the end of the 12th century, the medieval heart of the Città Alta – hosts a selection of sculptural works representative of the 1960s output, almost all of which have never been exhibited in Italy before.
The large-format works engage in dialogue with the fascinating architecture of the Sala delle Capriate, emptied of all its furnishings for the occasion, emphasising its particular beauty and finding in it the ideal dimension for their placement.
The historic series – from the Wedge Pieces to the Bolt Pieces, from the Melt to the Mattress Pieces, up to the Pedestal Pieces – offer visitors a comprehensive overview of the first fundamental creative decade and an introduction to the second part of the exhibition, housed in the rooms of GAMeC.

The first floor of the Galleria is instead divided into three different sections, corresponding to three fundamental “contrasts” explored by Kuehn in the course of his research: adaptation/deformation, connection/separation, freedom/limit. Antagonisms that, in over fifty years of activity, have shaped a body of work in which the sense of material presence and craftsmanship have become tools for expressing metaphorical and psychological dimensions.

For this part, therefore, the display does not proceed chronologically, but focuses on the dialectical relationship between sculptures, paintings and drawings, both historic and recent, bringing out the thematic cores underlying the artist’s output.

An evolution that moves from the first experimental sculptures, now internationally celebrated, through the graphic works, the two-dimensional works in zinc and copper and the Black Paintings of the 1970s as well as the more recent ones made in the 2000s, the Twist Pieces, the Berliner Serie and the iron installations of the 1980s and 1990s, up to the resin sculptures, the Stancil Drawings of recent years and the Gesture Projects that have run through his entire output. The exhibition also presents a previously unpublished interview with the artist, made especially for the occasion, in which Gary Kuehn retraces the fundamental stages of his research, analysing his relationship with American Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism and Italian Arte Povera, and developing a parallel reflection on the present.