ART CITIES:London-Claudio Parmiggiani

The work of Italian artist Claudio Parmiggiani is concerned with themes of absence, the inevitable passage of time, fragmentation and silence. Over the course of his career, Parmiggiani has maintained a radical stance and singular vision, interrogating the power of memory and shared history, as well as the dual nature of time, with recurring motifs such as dust, fire, glass, shadows and empty space.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Simon Lee Gallery Archive

Claudio Parmiggiani’ s practice demonstrates a profound interest in our artistic, historical and moral past. Deeply personal meditations on life and death, the power of reflection and feelings of the sacred are realized in concrete objects, photographic and painted images, and in his signature “Delocazione” Inaugurated in 1970, these haunting works use powder, soot and fire to create shadows and imprints on paper and board, resulting in a sense of absence while at the same time making manifest an unmistakable human presence, tangible, yet not corporeal. For his solo exhibition Claudio Parmiggiani presents a suite of new “Delocazione” works. These panels, painted with smoke and soot, filled with the shadowy imprints of books, transform the empty gallery walls into a ghostly library. The volumes that line each shelf appear burnt, dematerialized from physical object to residual outline. An additional single “Delocazione” e panel embodies a human figure; the imprint of a vanished presence that haunts the artist’s library. Since Parmiggiani initiated the “Delocazione”  they have become a recurrent and fundamental element of his oeuvre, amongst his most powerful expressions of absence. A cast iron bell hangs from the ceiling but rests immobile. Rendered mute by its stasis, its silence has a near physical impact. The stillness of the bell echoes through the gallery, magnified by the shelves, which house charred books similarly void of sound – their words eradicated. Parmiggiani has defined his installations as theatres in which silence is the performance. These works situate the potential of sound at the heart of silence: a silence of plenitude. A secluded “Delocazione”  hides away at the end of gallery, here Parmiggiani immortalizes a cloud of butterflies as they rise in flight, vividly eternalized in their silent journey their delicate wings flutter in stillness. Over the course of his career Parmiggiani has developed a concise and powerful vocabulary, gathering objects, fragments and images which he chooses for their evocative power. The artist refers to the sources in this repository as ‘presences’. Books, bells and butterflies are an essential part of this lexicon and recurring motifs in his work. Presented in dialogue, they reinforce one another’s symbolic significance, revealing new connections in their elucidation of timelessness, humanity and antiquity. In these new works, Parmiggiani ultimately articulates an ongoing commitment to his investigation into the human condition and the footprints we leave behind; they invite us to reflect on our quest for knowledge and the fleeting impression we leave in the annals of history.

Photo: Claudio Parmiggiani, Senza Titolo, 2021, Smoke and soot on board, 150 x 200 cm / 59 1/8 x 78 3/4 in., © Claudio Parmiggiani, Courtesy of Simon Lee Gallery

Info: Simon Lee Gallery, 12 Berkeley Street, London, England, Duration: 16/6-6/8/2021, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.simonleegallery.com