Image: Centro arte moderna e contemporanea, La Spezia
‘Francesco Clemente. Il primato del disegno. Opere 1975-1980’ will run from 10 October 2026 to 29 March 2027. The exhibition will be the first appointment of ‘Oltreconfine. Arte italiana 1968-1989,’ a project conceived by Arturo Galansino with exhibitions curated by Francesco Guzzetti.
The exhibition focuses on Francesco Clemente’s initial period, presenting a group of works shown at the artist’s principal solo exhibitions in the second half of the 1970s. Its account of Clemente’s development moves from his beginnings under the sign of photography to his arrival at painting, with drawing serving as a thread understood as an equilibrium between discipline and invention. Clemente is described as one of the protagonists of international contemporary art.
The works give increasing space to freehand drawings whose subjects are recognizable but enigmatic, made with considerable technical virtuosity using coloured pencils, pastels and watercolours. The exhibition connects Clemente’s development at the end of the 1970s with the return to figuration and painting associated with the generation of artists that emerged during that period. His self-portraits made from that point marked the artist’s international affirmation at the beginning of the 1980s.
The research conducted by artists at the time crossed different practices, techniques and experiments, moving from one medium to another and mixing the most varied genres of artistic expression. With the Clemente exhibition, the project intends to begin a path that is not only a balance of a fundamental period in Italian art, but also an opportunity for scientific critical and philological analysis of lesser-known events involving its protagonists.
