Mixografía is excited to announce a solo exhibition by the Italian artist MIMMO PALADINO (b. 1948). The exhibition features the series, “California Suite” (2004), as well as the monumental print, Untitled (2009). There will be an opening reception on Saturday, November 9th, from 4 – 6 PM at the Mixografía Workshop located at 1419 E. Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90011.
Mimmo Paladino was one of the leading figures in the Italian Transavanguardia movement in the late 1970s and 1980s, along with notable painters such as Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, and Nicolo de Maria. Transavanguardia (or Transavantgarde in English) is the Italian equivalent of the American Neo-Expressionism art movement.
The Italian movement comprised of a group of painters who sought to distance themselves from the cold orthodoxy of conceptual abstraction that dominated art at the time. It was a desire to return to figuration, mythic imagery, and symbolism in painting, which had been mostly abandoned by other contemporaneous art movements following World War II. These artists focused on traditional themes like human emotion, nature, and the universality of symbols, especially those implemented in ritualistic practices.
In 2004, Mixografia collaborated with Paladino to publish the 11-print series titled, “California Suite”. Each edition in the series uses iconography that is at once universal in reference, yet disassociated from overtly political and religious specificity. Paladino uses geometric shapes, numbers, hands, and heads to evoke symbols from ancient societies as a way to reconnect with them and to promote notions of timelessness.
The editions depict a collage of mosaic tiles, wooden blocks, metal shards, piled clay, painted canvas and even found photographs. For Paladino, the Mixografia® printing technique provided an opportunity to bring to life the objects and textures from history’s past, and breathe new life to these disparate objects and symbols.
Following this series, Paladino returned to produce the large-scale print, Untitled. Published in 2009, the edition depicts a full-figure man with palms up in a gesture of peace and gratitude. The passage of time is etched on the surface of the wooden figure while black birds adorn the body. This print employed the largest of the workshop’s presses to accommodate its gigantic scale.
Untitled continues Paladino’s pursuit of making large-scale prints. Early example of his monumental prints are his linocuts from the early 1980s, in particular the series, “Atlantico,” published in 1987. Furthermore, developments in handmade papermaking at Mixografía afforded Paladino the ability to use the paper medium structurally in order to support an array of cast-resin bird sculptures on the surface.
For more information, please contact Herbert Mendoza at
(323) 232-1158 or gallery@mixografia.com
Gallery hours: 10 am – 5 pm, Monday through Friday, or by appointment.
