Giannetto Bravi Petit amour

cm 137 x 135,5

Giannetto Bravi (Tripoli, 1938 - Cislago, 2013) trained in Naples, where he lived from 1940 to 1974. He graduated in Geology and started his experimental research in the neo-avant-garde artistic movement. His first experiments are paintings made with luminescent colors, in which the perceptive experience of Op movement in Central Europe and Latin America merges with the experience and the simplified use of colors of Anglo-Saxon and American Pop Art. His debut was in 1967 with his first solo exhibition at the Galleria Fiamma Vigo in Rome, where he exhibited his Verifiche (Tests) (1964-1966): canvases of strong optical ascendancy that present a geometric scanning of the surface through horizontal lines and concentric circles. After having participated, in the seventies, to the foundation of the Galleria Inesistente (Nonexisting Gallery), with Bruno Barbati, Vincent D'Arista, Maria Palliggiano, Gianni Pisani and Errico Ruotolo, the artist began to realize his “briefcases” produced in series, that will become a recognizable element of his Neapolitan production. The artist’s research and creative process of the time develops on one hand out of a deep knowledge of the local culture, and on the other hand a scientific attitude to the detection, the verification and the collection of evidence. Bravi is a multifaceted artist whose work breaks the disciplinary boundaries of visual art. In his latest works, he reflects on the concept of museum, mostly focusing on the bookshop area, dedicated to cultural fruition, of which the postcard is an emblematic object. During the Neapolitan period, the Vesuvius became the privileged subject of the artist’s research, who began to collect and send postcards depicting it. The postcards sent between 1973 and 1974 became part of an experiment in mail art that took the form of assemblages in which the artist superimposed them, using them in different ways. In the work Petit amour, the postcards collected by the artist during his travels are applied on different supports including canvas and honeycomb panel in multiples of four, six, eight, twelve.

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