Luca Pignatelli was born on the 22nd of June, 1962 in Milan, where he still lives and works in a studio-house which he personally designed. Son of Ercole, an artist himself, after obtaining his high-school diploma, in the early Eighties he enters the Politecnico di Milano, attending the architectural composition courses. The Department of Architecture at that time was entrenched with the intuitions of Aldo Rossi and inspired by the concept of the sedimentary growth of History, which, for Pignatelli, will acquire a special relationship with painting, connecting the artist’s research on Time and Memory.
Always aware of the changes that take place among the sceneries of art, painting and architecture, Pignatelli is capable of condensing them into a transversal historical reflection.
The City and the History of Art represent for the artist a sort of permanent setting to human events, but nonetheless a dimension wherewith Pignatelli engages his artistic research, operating analogies, as well as modifications.
He is fascinated by anonymous architectures and port cities, with their construction sites and movement of good, encountered during his travels across European cities, by Milan, native city and place of choice, along with New York, where he sojourns for long periods starting from 1986.
As a painter capable of facing the challenges posed by large scale works, Pignatelli normally utilizes recovered and unexpected supports, pictorial in themselves: canvases and tarpaulins, woods and irons, assembled papers onto which he operates applying his selection of images, icons of the collective memory taken from a kind of universally renown repertoire.
His work explores images that are often finds of a lofty classical nature but also urban or mountain landscapes, sometimes trains, planes, symbolic elements, employed by the artist to construct and deconstruct a new evocative visual repertoire.
Currently, Luca Pignatelli’s research focuses on materials and on the esthetic and conceptual possibilities generated by the superimposition and stratification of different iconographic cultures.
Persepoli represents the most recent outcome of this journey of never-ending experimentation: a cycle of mixed media on antique Persian carpets, created under the intention of integrating distant historical periods, cultures and worlds.
Among his most recent solo exhibitions we cite:
“Senza Data”, Stefano Bardini Museum, Florence (2019); “Luca Pignatelli. Recent Works”, Senesi Contemporanea Gallery (2018); “Persepoli”, La Fenice Theatre, Venice (2017); “Luca Pignatelli”, Cucchiari Palace, Carrara (2017); Uffizi Gallery in Florence (2015); Modern Art gallery – GAM, Turin (2015); Capodimonte Museum, Naples (2014); National Institution for Graphic Art, Rome (2011); Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Nice – MAMAC, (2009); MANN, National Archeological Museum, Naples (2008); Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milao (2008); India Theatre, Rome (2007); Annex Plus – White Box & Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, New York (2006); Galerie Daniel Templon, Parigi (2005); Generous Miracles Gallery, New York (2004, 2003, 2000); Galleria Thomas Levy, Madrid (2002); Mudima Foundation, Milan (1999); Friedlander Limn Gallery, San Francisco, CA (1999); Leighton House Museum, London (1991).
Among his group exhibitions we cite:
“Giambattista Piranesi. Architetto senza tempo”, Musei Civici di Bassano del Grappa, Palazzo Sturm (2020); “Angel”, Chiesa di Sant’Antoine, Istanbul (2019); “Work in Progress. La collezione di Arte Contemporanea della Fondazione San Patrignano”, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (2019); “REVOLUTIONS 1989-2019. L'arte del mondo nuovo 30 anni dopo”, Castel Sismondo, Rimini (2019); “L’immagine è necessaria”, Stamperia d’Arte Albicocco, Udine (2019); “Porti Possibili. Sei artisti per l’accoglienza”, Santa Giulia Museum, Brescia (2019); “Persepoli”, Mosaic Room of the Classense Library, Ravenna, (2018); Work in Progress. San Patrignano Foundation Contemporary Art Collection, La Triennale di Milano and MAXXI Museum in Rome (2018); “Mediterraneo. Lo specchio dell’Altro”, Royal Palace, Milan (2018); “Arte contro la corruzione”, Casa Testori, Novate Milanese (2017); Gallerie dell’Accademia, Florence (2014); Palazzo Chiablese, Turin (2014); “Co-existance”, MAXXI Museum in Rome & The Jerusalem Foundation, Tel Aviv (2010); 53rd International Art Biennal Exhibition, Venice (2009); Gino Di Maggio Gallery, Berlin (2004); “New Acquisitions”, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg (2004); “Arte è Pace”; 50th International Art Biennal Exhibition, Venice (2003); Palace of the European Parliament, Strasburgo (2003); Académie Royale de Belgique, Bruxelles (2002); Isetan Tokyo Museum, Tokyo (2000); PAC – Contemporary Art Pavilion, Milan (2000); Musée Nicolas Sursock, Beyruth (1997); Musée Pully, Losanna (1996).
