PAOLO DEL GIUDICE

Paolo Del Giudice was born in Treviso in 1952. He lives and works between his home in the city and the studio in nearby Montello. His apprenticeship took place between the ages of ten and sixteen when he painted landscape directly from nature. In 1968 he started working in a studio where his interest moved to figure painting, which he worked on in expressionistic manner. In just a few years he elaborated a autonomous language and was awarded first prize at the tenth edition of the prestigious Biennale Triveneta d’Arte of Cittadella in 1970.

In 1971 he graduated from Liceo Scientifico. After a transition year in which he attended university at the Humanities and Philosophy faculty, he enrolled without enthusiasm at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, where he met artists such as Alberto Viani, Edmondo Bacci and Emilio Vedova and participated in initiatives promoted by the Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, where in the ten years that followed, he was involved in solo shows and group shows as well as being awarded various prizes in annual exhibitions put on by the foundation.

The social and cultural climate of the period induced him to put pure painting aside and autonomously begin research in multimedia processes (the assemblage of photographic material regarding everyday life which he manipulated by means of serigraphy and a subsequent intervention of paint). This experience left a deep mark in the relationship between his artistic language and photography, which from this point on became ineluctable. His return to the freedom of painting is marked by the execution of two large mural paintings on the external walls of public buildings in Venice and Marghera at the 1982/83 biennial. In the years that followed, he gradually left the human figure theme behind, a theme which had become almost an obsession. He began his research into the places of life, art and memory, which occupy him still today. The first results were seen in the exhibition entitled Oggetti (Objects) at the Galleria Avida Dollars in Milan in 1985, as well as in the big Venetian altars which were shown the following year at Attico in Rome in the exhibition Tre su mille: tre artisti scelti da Sargentini (Three out of a Thousand: Three Artists chosen by Sargentini). An extensive solo show of Ritratti (Portraits) was held in 1990 at the same location. In this show the theme of man surfaced once more in the ‘sacred’ faces of artists and poets. The same year in Milan he showed a selection of paintings from the Archeologie (Archaeology) series executed during the preceding five-year period, at Galleria Avida Dollars’ new location. In this series, alongside the ghosts of art past, especially Baroque, reside traces of the relics of human and urban contemporary reality.

In 1991, the collaboration with Studio Gastaldelli of Milan began. Among the various solo shows that took place, Interni (Interiors) (1992) and Venezia: tentativi di immersione (Venice: Attempts at Immersion) (1993), up to the D’après (After) shows in 1999, an explicit engagement with art history occurred with the ideation of an ideal gallery of paintings. During the same years Del Giudice was present in the cultural happenings taking place in the north-eastern region of Italy with various thematic solo shows including the extensive retrospective Dieci anni di pittura (Ten Years of Painting) in the rooms of Villa Brandolini in Solighetto (2000).

In 2002, the spectacular Biblion exhibition took place in the Salone abbaziale in Sesto al Reghena: a homage to books, paper and the written word as a pieced-up vision of a monastic library. A series of solo shows followed in Milan: Elogio della pittura (Praise to Painting) (2002) once again at Studio Gastaldelli, and the following year Architetture dell’anima (Architectures of the Soul) at the Spazio Ta Matete. Among the most recent exhibitions are: Pagine nere (Black Pages) (2003) at Attico in Rome; Il sentimento dell’arte (The Sentiment of Art) (2004) at Palazzo Isolani in Bologna; Paesaggi urbani (Urban Landscapes) (2005) in the Claudia Augusta room of Palazzetti Cigolati in Feltre; Percezioni di paesaggio (Perceptions of Landscape) (2005) at the Ghiggini Arte Contemporanea space in Varese; Forza motrice (Driving Force) (2005) in the ATAC Hangar in Piazzale Prenestino, Rome.

In 2006 he presented Pier Paolo Pasolini: volti 1988 – 2005 (Pier Paolo Pasolini: faces 1988 – 2005) at Palazzo Ducale of Mantova; a series of paintings inspired by the image of the poet whom he has studied constantly over the past twenty years.

In 2006-2007, an important exhibition cycle entitled Viaggio in Italia (Italian Journey) took place, accompanied by a large catalogue bringing together twenty years of research and visually tracing the contrasts in aspects of the country’s culture and life, with three major exhibitions in the Civic Gallery of Modern Art at Palazzo Collicola in Spoleto and in the Massimiliana Tower of Sant’Erasmo Island in Venice in 2006; in the rooms of Palazzo Agostinelli in Bassano del Grappa in 2007, with the retrospective of Sacred Places.

Again in 2007, he held an important anthological exhibition entitled Pietas Mundi at the Sagittarius Gallery within the Centre for Cultural Initiatives in Pordenone.

In the spring of 2008, he resumes Viaggio in Italia (Travels in Italy) with a large exhibition at the Galleria Dolmabahçe in Istanbul, in the complex of the last residence of the sultans on the shores of the Bosphorus.

In 2008, two large paintings were commissioned by the Comune of Feltre to be included in the renovated museum complex of Galleria Romita.

From September 2008, Memorie di carta (Paper Memories) began, another two-year event with six national dates on a vast subject from papers, books, libraries, faces of the writers and poets he admired. The exhibition venues in 2008 were: the Isontina State Library of Gorizia, the Colussi House, home of the Pier Paolo Pasolini Centre, Casarsa della Delizia and the Angelica Library of Rome. In 2009, the review continued in the Church of Sant’Antonio Abate at the Archbishopric of Udine in the Sacristy of S.S. Trinity, in the Mantova State Archives and at the Einaudi Gallery of the same city, with which began an intense collaboration, and ended at the Carale Accattino Museum of Ivrea. In the same year, he participated in the Italia dipinta (Italy painted) exhibition under the auspices of IULM University in Milan.

In 2010, he inaugurated the exhibition space of the new civic library of Pordenone with the exhibition Post scripta, scrittori e poeti tra Veneto e Friuli (Post Script, writers and poets between Veneto and Friuli). He took part in the Collezione 7×11, la poesia degli artisti (7×11 Collective, the poetry of the artists) and puts on the great Verde Rame (Verdigris) exhibition in the furnace buildings of the copper mines of Valle Imperina (BL).

In 2011, he is invited to the Veneto section of the Padiglione Italia of the Venice Biennale, at the premises of Villa Contarini at Piazzola sul Brenta. He devotes the whole year to the event Percorsi dipinti – sguardi quotidiani su Treviso (Painted Paths – everyday views of Treviso), a tribute to his birthplace in nine locations in the historical centre, including churches, museums and public spaces.

In Rome in 2012, he participated in the exhibition Montaggio delle attrazioni (Assembling attractions) in Fabio Sargentini’s Attico. He puts on Sfogliare volti (Stripping away faces), in several locations in Feltre’s old town, for the opening of the town’s new library complex. He organized a memorable exhibition amongst the spare metallic structures of the former Padua abattoir, a complete review of the work of the past three decades.

In 2013, Poeti e romanzieri (Poets and Novelists) at the Quartiere Latino Libri of Conegliano.

In 2015, Incontro ad arte (Meetings On Purpose) in the complex of the former convent of San Francesco in Pordenone.

In 2016, Angeli e rovine (Angels and Ruins) review, at the Einaudi Gallery in Mantua.

In the summer of 2017, with the Inseguire Venezia, dipinti 1969-2017 (Chasing Venice, paintings 1969-2017) exhibition at the Bafile Cultural Centre of Caorle, he brought together his best work on the re-reading of the image of Venice.

In the autumn of the same year, Angeli e camion (Angels and Lorries), a wide-ranging retrospective took place in the rooms of Villa Brandolini in Pieve di Soligo.

Writers and critics have been interested in his work. Among them are: Flavio Arensi, Virginia Baradel, Franco Batacchi, Mario Bernardi, Gianfranco Bettin, Alberto Boatto, Manlio Brusatin, Lucio Cabutti, Corrado Castellani, Massimo Cescon, Diego Collovini, Giorgio Cortenova, Roberto Costella, Enrico Crispolti, Elsa Dezuanni, Marco Di Capua, Enzo Di Martino, Marco Fazzini, Carlo Franza, Eileen Ghiggini, Fabio Girardello, Marco Goldin, Flaminio Gualdoni, Mario Guderzo, Marco Lodoli, Pierpaolo Luderin, Eugenio Manzato, Dino Marangon, Marco Menato, Nico Naldini, Luciano Padovese, Isabella Panfido, Giancarlo Pauletto, Romano Perusini, Ennio Pouchard, Ivo Prandin, Carlo Sala, Enzo Santese, Alessandra Santin, Fabio Sargentini, Toti Scialoja, Giorgio Segato, Mario Stefani, Ottorino Stefani, Nico Stringa, Toni Toniato, Maria Luisa Trevisan, Filippo Trevisani, Lorenza Trucchi.

He is present in the well known chain “La Pittura in Italia. Il Novecento/2” (Twentieth Century Painting in Italy/2) published by Electa, Milan 1993 and in the later “La Pittura nel Veneto. Il Novecento/2” (Twentieth Century Painting in Veneto/2) published by Electa, Milan 2008¸ “La Pittura nel Veneto” Il Novecento/3 – Electa Milano 2010.

Recently, his artistic research was the subject of two graduation theses at the University of Ca’ Foscari, Venice..