Marco Gastini

Marco Gastini was born in 1938 in Turin, where he lives and works. In the late 1960s he began developing an original line of research in painting, focusing on: trace, spatial presence and chromatic annihilation. Colour makes its appearance in works dating to the 1980s, along with the frequent use of materials not traditionally used in painting, some of which bear the echo of human experience, such as wood, metals, minerals, parchment. The titles of these works abandon the minimalist register and become more narrative and evocative. The 1990s witness the continuation of the contamination between heterogeneous materials interplaying with each other and the environment, sometimes on a monumental scale, creating energetic fields and radiating tension into space, generating an emotional involvement of the viewer. In Italy, Gastini’s work has been exhibited in all the main cities; he has collaborated extensively with the Galleria Martano in Turin and with the Salone Annunciata in Milan. He has designed site-specific installations, such as in Castel Burio (1987) and Siena (1997); he also took part in the Venice Biennale (1976, 1982). Abroad, beginning in the 1970s, he has taken part in many group exhibitions: among others, the Annemarie Verna Gallery in Zurich, the John Weber Gallery in New York, and the Walter Storms Gallery in Munich. Anthological exhibitions: at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, in 1982, at the Galleria Civica in Modena (1983), and the PAC in Milan (1984). During the following decade his work was exhibited at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna in Bologna (1992), the Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea in Trento, the Kunstverein of Frankfurt and St. Gallen (1993), the Orangerie im Schlosspark Belvedere of Weimar (1998). More recently, retrospectives of his work have been organized by GAM in Turin with the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich (2001) and by CAMeC in La Spezia in collaboration with the Kunsthalle Göppingen (2005). Over the past decade Gastini has held solo exhibitions at the Galleria dell’Oca in Rome (2005), the Otto Gallery in Bologna (2006), the Giorgio Persano Gallery in Turin (2008), the Galleria dello Scudo in Verona (2008-09); recent exhibitions were held in 2011 at the Walter Storms Galerie in Munich and in 2012 at the MAMbo in Bologna.