In praise of shadow

Architecture is always the main protagonist in Arduino Cantàfora’s paintings but in this exhibition in Lausanne pictures reveal the quest for a denser but, at the same time, more tormented texture.

This solo exhibition features works painted by Arduino Cantàfora since 2011, the time of his second solo exhibition at the Galerie de l’Univers in Lausanne, which followed one in 2007.

The exhibition opened a few days ago and commences with the emblematic Le Venezie possibili. Observers will recognise some of the buildings dear to Cantàfora in his many forays into urban universes, starting with that of 1973 at the XV Milan Triennale. The painting contains an unexpected presence, a glimpse of the Capriccio Palladiano in the Galleria Nazionale di Parma which gave Aldo Rossi the idea for the Città Analoga (Analogous City). Canaletto’s canvas helps us further explore the horizon of alternative Venices, illustrating the nature of the game behind every similar city and closing a circle that still has room for many more figures. Of all the alternative Venices, Cantàfora’s features Canaletto’s Capriccio which, in turn, contained the painted and extremely real image of an another Venice, such as those narrated by Paul Morand.

In the proximity of this umpteenth similar city, the exhibition shows two large paintings entitled Teatro di città with a complex composition: front-on views of Roman archaeological ruins – just like those that might have been admired by a late-18th century traveller – provide a fixed stage for theatres, the presence of which is only indicated by well-ordered rows of chairs, yes chairs and more like those of the suburban cinemas so dear to Cantàfora than to comfortable velvet seats; on the right, the skeleton of a building perhaps never finished creates an inexplicable theatre space. In the first painting, observers find themselves behind the rows of chairs; in the second, the composition is viewed from a platform of wooden planks set higher than the chair level. A double theatre, a double stage or a never-ending mise en abîme? The play of mirrors involves space but also time – Roman antiquities remain buried beneath piles of history, a simple house rests indifferently against them and the strange building, from the inside of which we observe the scene, harks back to the early period of Cantàfora’s painting, when the architecture consisted in fragile plastered walls and large windows, diffused light and silences, as in the “House of the Rising Sun”, which is actually also a theatre.

Compared with his previous production, these three paintings reveal a more intimate and personal time dimension. The two versions of Teatro di città also present a coarser texture; in one case, vegetation covers and breaks through the ancient walls but, in the other, the render covering the simple construction presents large damp patches. Other pictures in this exhibition speak of crumbling matter, such as Corte lontana II, where the detached render lays the brick wall bare, contrasting curiously with pictures showing buildings that seem impassive to the passing of time.

The architecture is always the main protagonist in Cantàfora’s paintings but anyone familiar with his work will be surprised to encounter in this exhibition a number of portrayals featuring moving animals and human figures, often draped in shadow. These pictures reveal the quest for a denser but, at the same time, more tormented texture, far removed from the clear bright skies of certain Berlin subjects in the same exhibition. His tried and tested technique seems to have undergone a transformation or to have split to allow Cantàfora to achieve two very different types of precision, almost as if, on leaning down for a close look at a fox or a woman’s face, it were no longer sufficient to fill the space with light to convey the material vibrations.

In this series, Arduino Cantàfora’s painting seems to have lost the fixedness of interiors cloaked in shadow – those same interiors that fuelled the nostalgic imagery of many of his students at Lausanne Polytechnic – and opened up to a universe filled with characters that are as real as they are unlikely. This new universe more closely resembles a Hopper interior than the almost abstract aspects of his rooms brought to life by the implacable slanting light of the famous Muri abitati series created a dozen or so years ago.

In this exhibition, Cantàfora offers an as yet concealed part of his biography, a complement to that Passaporto per la Vita that is its literary version in which he thinks about what exists alongside the great Story, if indeed it exists, and the little story in which everything slowly undergoes a metamorphosis and speaks of impossible books left unwritten. (cf. Arduino Cantàfora, Passaporto per la Vita, Christian Marinotti Edizioni, Milan 2009).

until 18 July 2015
Arduino Cantàfora. Éloge de l’ombre
Galerie de l’Univers
rue Centrale 5, Lausanne

In praise of shadow

Architecture is always the main protagonist in Arduino Cantàfora’s paintings but in this exhibition in Lausanne pictures reveal the quest for a denser but, at the same time, more tormented texture.

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