by Alain Chivilò
© Alain Chivilò
Romagna is his land and any doubt is removed. Painter and musician, Maurizio Monti testifies through his painting an ancient creed: to represent a true beauty, but above all not supposed or corrupted by veiled contrasts.
Times seem to put him off topic, but a process for a serious artist rarely changes. “Panta rei” is the solo exhibition that brings on show circa forty works by the master Maurizio Monti, for the first time, at Casa del Mantegna in collaboration with the Province of Mantua.
Curated by the art critic Alain Chivilò, figurative works, divided between hyperrealism and surrealism, introduce the visitor into canons of elegance to be discovered secretly within hidden details.
In a floral journey, synonymous of beauty, an element or a figure to be discovered are games imbued with intellectuality, placed by Monti himself towards the observer of his works. In fact, as indicated by Chivilò in the critical text: “in every single work, each painted situation possesses and reveals a human factor, from which further perceptions are generated according to who is in front of his works. Thus, the artist creates an interaction capable of generating further neural connections.
In this game inherited from Surrealism, a univocal reality is not discovered and determined, but a continuous flow of colors, shapes, lights and vibrations radiating completely lyrical visions and worlds. We witness, as indeed in the life of Maurizio Monti, an “everything flows” for an eternal becoming of reality which, regularly, is renewed and transformed, since nothing can remain immutable compared to the previous moment.
An endless flow, although in the physical stillness of the work everything prepares for a further quid, starting also from the fact that if – colors ripen at night – (Alda Merini), Monti’s enigmas emanate positive forces of observation and contemplation”.
Maurizio Monti’s solo show allows to enter a universe made in Jean-Michel Folon style, to be constantly present in the virtual and at the same time real spaces of an imaginary travel agency. The sequence of works with a high oneiric content, at Casa del Mantegna, therefore allows the visitor to explore Monti’s pictorial path within an open place and without prejudice, to any type of artistic expression.
Solo exhibition details:
Maurizio Monti
Panta rei
curated by Alain Chivilò
Casa del Mantegna
Via Giovanni Acerbi, 47, Mantua
6/11 – 9/1/2022
Opening Saturday 6 November at 5.30 pm. The artist will be present.
From Wednesday to Sunday Hours 10 am – 1 pm / 2.30 pm – 6.30 pm
Open: Wednesday 8 December 2021 – Thursday 6 January 2022.
Closed: 25, 26 December 2021 – 1 January 2022
Admission Free
Biography
Maurizio Monti was born in 1951 in S. Sofia in the province of Forlì. He is immediately attracted by the design that leads him to estrange himself from reality by building a world of his own. He doesn’t behave like his peers, for example he doesn’t play war: he draws it. He fills all the blank sheets that he finds with endless battles, hundreds and hundreds of toy soldiers fighting a war, perhaps a harbinger of the difficulties that await him at the end of his childhood. With a box of paints donated by his parents he discovers painting and this passion leads him, among other things, to copy all the frescoes in the Sistine chapel at the age of ten. Having won the first competition in 1968, he begins to exhibit his works in various group and personal exhibitions, already knowing that Painting will be what he wants to “do when he grows up”. In 1970 he obtained the Diploma of Art and in 1971 he entered the advertising graphics sector as a free-lance. During the same period, working as a designer, he spanned various fields, from fashion to furniture and from objects to the design of exhibition stands. Poorly enduring the cages imposed on him by the commercial sector, he abandons everything and driven by his innate restlessness he sets off in a hitchhiking trip, starting a journey that is more mental than anything else. This nomadism forces him, in order to survive, to all sorts of work until the discovery of what is most congenial to him: the madonnaro. Drawing sidewalks and refining his dexterity, for a few years, he traveled the streets of Italy and most of Europe. Forced to military service, he returns to his places of origin. After the “military”, his creativity led him to follow another passion of his: Music. The profession of musician gives him the opportunity to be completely free in artistic choices and allows him to develop a very personal pictorial technique outside of any current and sterile elitism. In 1980 he received his first international recognition: the Presidency Prize at the VI European Biennial in Strasbourg, an award that opened the doors of public and private collections to him. While continuing to cultivate music as a means of expression and with about a hundred active exhibitions since 1998, he has devoted himself entirely to painting, realizing what he believes: “it’s not a choice, it’s my destiny”.
by Alain Chivilò
© Alain Chivilò
Romagna is his land and any doubt is removed. Painter and musician, Maurizio Monti testifies through his painting an ancient creed: to represent a true beauty, but above all not supposed or corrupted by veiled contrasts.
Times seem to put him off topic, but a process for a serious artist rarely changes. “Panta rei” is the solo exhibition that brings on show circa forty works by the master Maurizio Monti, for the first time, at Casa del Mantegna in collaboration with the Province of Mantua.
Curated by the art critic Alain Chivilò, figurative works, divided between hyperrealism and surrealism, introduce the visitor into canons of elegance to be discovered secretly within hidden details.
In a floral journey, synonymous of beauty, an element or a figure to be discovered are games imbued with intellectuality, placed by Monti himself towards the observer of his works. In fact, as indicated by Chivilò in the critical text: “in every single work, each painted situation possesses and reveals a human factor, from which further perceptions are generated according to who is in front of his works. Thus, the artist creates an interaction capable of generating further neural connections.
In this game inherited from Surrealism, a univocal reality is not discovered and determined, but a continuous flow of colors, shapes, lights and vibrations radiating completely lyrical visions and worlds. We witness, as indeed in the life of Maurizio Monti, an “everything flows” for an eternal becoming of reality which, regularly, is renewed and transformed, since nothing can remain immutable compared to the previous moment.
An endless flow, although in the physical stillness of the work everything prepares for a further quid, starting also from the fact that if – colors ripen at night – (Alda Merini), Monti’s enigmas emanate positive forces of observation and contemplation”.
Maurizio Monti’s solo show allows to enter a universe made in Jean-Michel Folon style, to be constantly present in the virtual and at the same time real spaces of an imaginary travel agency. The sequence of works with a high oneiric content, at Casa del Mantegna, therefore allows the visitor to explore Monti’s pictorial path within an open place and without prejudice, to any type of artistic expression.
Solo exhibition details:
Maurizio Monti
Panta rei
curated by Alain Chivilò
Casa del Mantegna
Via Giovanni Acerbi, 47, Mantua
6/11 – 9/1/2022
Opening Saturday 6 November at 5.30 pm. The artist will be present.
From Wednesday to Sunday Hours 10 am – 1 pm / 2.30 pm – 6.30 pm
Open: Wednesday 8 December 2021 – Thursday 6 January 2022.
Closed: 25, 26 December 2021 – 1 January 2022
Admission Free
Biography
Maurizio Monti was born in 1951 in S. Sofia in the province of Forlì. He is immediately attracted by the design that leads him to estrange himself from reality by building a world of his own. He doesn’t behave like his peers, for example he doesn’t play war: he draws it. He fills all the blank sheets that he finds with endless battles, hundreds and hundreds of toy soldiers fighting a war, perhaps a harbinger of the difficulties that await him at the end of his childhood. With a box of paints donated by his parents he discovers painting and this passion leads him, among other things, to copy all the frescoes in the Sistine chapel at the age of ten. Having won the first competition in 1968, he begins to exhibit his works in various group and personal exhibitions, already knowing that Painting will be what he wants to “do when he grows up”. In 1970 he obtained the Diploma of Art and in 1971 he entered the advertising graphics sector as a free-lance. During the same period, working as a designer, he spanned various fields, from fashion to furniture and from objects to the design of exhibition stands. Poorly enduring the cages imposed on him by the commercial sector, he abandons everything and driven by his innate restlessness he sets off in a hitchhiking trip, starting a journey that is more mental than anything else. This nomadism forces him, in order to survive, to all sorts of work until the discovery of what is most congenial to him: the madonnaro. Drawing sidewalks and refining his dexterity, for a few years, he traveled the streets of Italy and most of Europe. Forced to military service, he returns to his places of origin. After the “military”, his creativity led him to follow another passion of his: Music. The profession of musician gives him the opportunity to be completely free in artistic choices and allows him to develop a very personal pictorial technique outside of any current and sterile elitism. In 1980 he received his first international recognition: the Presidency Prize at the VI European Biennial in Strasbourg, an award that opened the doors of public and private collections to him. While continuing to cultivate music as a means of expression and with about a hundred active exhibitions since 1998, he has devoted himself entirely to painting, realizing what he believes: “it’s not a choice, it’s my destiny”.
by Alain Chivilò
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