NOIRE

Paolo Icaro Chissotti was born in Turin in 1936. After a first approach to sculpture in Umberto Mastroianni’s studio in Turin, in the early Sixties he moved to Rome and from there in 1966 he left for New York, where he lived until 1968. Overseas he created Forme di spazio (1967), after renamed Gabbie (Cages), structures in metal profile in which sculpture, instead of occupying space, becomes a place, the origin of space. Between the Sixties and Seventies he took part in the main exhibitions of the international artistic avant-garde, such as the first Arte Povera exhibitions, and was invited by Harald Szeemann to the legendary When Attitudes Become Form held in 1969 at the Kunsthalle in Bern.
In 1971 he returned again to the United States, in Connecticut, where he lived throughout the decade. He created cycles of works such as I luoghi del punto and le Misure intime – pathways for measuring the body, using different plastic materials. He then approaches plaster, a material that acts through time, preserving the imprint of the rapid gesture that shaped it. At the beginning of the 1980s he moved definitively to Italy.
In 1982 he held a solo exhibition at the PAC – Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan. In 1987 he was invited with a solo show to the Palazzina dei Giardini in Modena presented by Dore Ashton and Pier Giovanni Castagnoli.
During the Seventies and Eighties, numerous solo exhibitions took place in important European and American galleries, such as: Verna, Zurich (1972, 1974, 1978, 1985); Françoise Lambert, Milan (1976); Marilena Bonomo, Bari (1976); Massimo Minini, Brescia (1977, 1982, 1989); Paul Maenz, Cologne (1978), Hal Bromm, New York (1978, 1979); Jack Tilton, New York (1985, 1986, 1989). His monograph, edited by Mario Bertoni (Essegi, Ravenna), was published in 1990. In 1995 Danilo Eccher curated an anthological exhibition at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea in Trento.
Among the most recent solo exhibitions: Appunti di Viaggio 1967-2014, Peep-Hole, Milan (2014); Teoria ingenua degli insieme, P420, Bologna (2016); Respiro, all’interno dell’esterno dell’interno, Fondazione Volume! (2017); Paolo Icaro, Unending Incipit, Pinacoteca Comunale, Città di Castello (2017); Le Pietre del Cielo: Paolo Icaro and Luigi Ghirri, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice (2017); Un prato in quattro tempi, La Statale Arte, Milan (2018); Paolo Icaro. Studio Woodbridge. Plaster Works 1978-1982, solo show Art Basel 2018 with P420, Bologna (2018); Alla ricerca dell’equilibrio perduto, Galleria Massimo Minini (2018/2019); Antologia/Anthology 1964-2019, GAM- Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin (2019); Scose, Noire Gallery, Turin (2019).