Ferruccio Gard
Già fra i protagonisti, dagli anni settanta, dell’arte cinetica, Gard è uno degli esponenti più noti del nuovo astrattismo, pur continuando la sua ricerca anche nell’ambito della optical art. E’ stato invitato a cinque Biennali di Venezia ( 1982, 1986, 1995, 2007 e 2009) e all’XI Quadriennale di Roma ( 1986). Ha tenuto oltre 140 mostre personali in Musei e Gallerie di tutto il mondo. E’ considerato un maestro del colore e un caposcuola, in considerazione anche del crescente numero di artisti che si
ispirano a lui o che addirittura lo copiano. Della sua arte hanno scritto i più famosi critici, da Giuseppe Marchiori, fondatore del Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, a Pierre Restany, fondatore del Nuoveau Realisme e ad Achille Bonito Oliva, teorico della Transavanguardia.
Nato a Vestignè (Torino) nel 1940, dal 1973 vive e lavora a Venezia.
Fra le mostre più recenti, nel 2008 la personale all’Istituto Italiano di Cultura
di Bruxelles e la rassegna “ Movement as a Message” sull’arte cinetica internazionale alla Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna di Praga.
Fra gli appuntamenti del 2009, la personale all’Istituto Italiano di Cultura di New York e la partecipazione, con Ennio Finzi e Riccardo Licata, all’evento collaterale della 53° Biennale di Venezia “ Porto d’Arti”, a cura di Luciano Caramel.
Il primo riconoscimento di livello nazionale Ferruccio Gard lo ha avuto a Torino con l’invito, nel 1974, alla XII Quadriennale Nazionale della Società Promotrice delle Belle Arti.
Dal 1973 vive e lavora a Venezia, con studio nell’isola del Lido.
Ferruccio Gard is one of the best-known exponents of new abstract art. He has held 130 personal exhibitions and over 200 collective ones in Museums and Galleries in China, Japan, United States, Australia, Brazil, Panama, Singapore, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Tasmania, Greece, Rumania and Italy. He has been invited to 5 Biennali Internazionali in Venice (1982-1986-1995-2007-2009) and to the 11th Quadriennale Nazionale in Rome (1986). He was invited to participate in the most important exhibition ever held on Italian abstract art: "Astratta: Secessioni Astratte in Italia dal dopoguerra al 1990", organised by Giorgio Cortenova and Filiberto Menna (Verona, Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Palazzo Forti; Milan, Palazzo della Permanente; Darmstadt, Kunsthalle). In 1984 the city of Venice dedicated an anthological exhibition to him
in the Wagnerian Museum of Ca’ Vendramin Calergi. His recent personal exhibitions include a provocative revisiting of a few temples of the Italian Renaissance, with exhibitions in Mantegna’s house in Mantua; in the Palladian Basilica in Vicenza; in Giorgione’s house in Castelfranco Veneto and in the Lombardesque Loggetta in Ravenna. In 1997 he held a personal exhibition in "Tessaloniki, cultural capital of Europa 1997". Also in 1997, in an exhibition organised by the Cultural Affairs Council of Venice, held in the Palazzo delle Prigioni, by St. Mark’s Square, and presented by the Mayor, Massimo Cacciari, he exhibited some new "picto-sculptures" in glass, created in artistic collaboration with Archimede Seguso, considered the greatest master-glassblower of Murano. Gard was born in Vestignè (Turin). Since 1973 he has lived and worked in Venice, with a studio on the Lido, in via Lepanto 1/G. He has been active for thirty years, and after initial periods of surrealism and metaphysics, characterised by geometrical figures, he came in 1978, following a coherent evolution, to programmed art, neo-constructivism and "gestaltic-art", Gestalpsychologie (the latest avant-garde of the century), so-called because connected with the psychology of perception and the theory of form. Within this field he has continued his research into the relations between light, space and form, into chromatism and visual perception. In 1987 this research led him to the abstract art of new geometry and, in the nineties, to informal-abstract painting. His most recent aesthetic endeavour is considered by many critics as one of the most stimulating in Italy today, for his personal chromatic exploration and the original fusion of two fundamental experiences of contemporary art: abstraction and informalism.
