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January 14 to March 27, 2026
Alighiero Boetti, Giulio Paolini, Robert Wilson, Antonio Calderara, Giorgio Griffa, Sol LeWitt

In Memory of Robert Wilson (1941–2025)

The current exhibition CONTRASTES II features the three Italian artists Alighiero Boetti (1940–1994), Giorgio Griffa (born 1936), and Giulio Paolini (born 1940).

The gallery has a long and rich history with these artists. Regular visits to their galleries and studios in Milan and Turin shaped the 1970s, as did intense summer days in Spoleto, where many Italian avant-garde artists spent their summers.

The gallery had already featured Alighiero Boetti (later Alighiero e Boetti) and Giorgio Griffa in the 1972 group exhibition "Objects, Projects, Plans – Conceptual Art from Italy." Solo exhibitions with Alighiero Boetti followed in 1974, 1977, and 1982, and with Giorgio Griffa in 1973, 1975, 1978, 1981, and 2017. The collaboration with Giulio Paolini continues to this day, and since 1973 the gallery has presented his work in nine solo exhibitions.

One exhibition space is dedicated to the artist, theatrical visionary, and friend Robert Wilson (1941–2025).

Robert Wilson's productions are events. Wilson first visualized many of his ideas in the form of drawings; language came later. His view of theater was one from the perspective of the visual arts. Performance, installation, drawing, and sculpture provided essential foundations, shaped by the avant-garde movements of the 1960s. Robert Wilson always considered himself an artist until the very end.

The three works on paper from 1981 and 1991 vividly demonstrate the visual power of focusing on the various shades of gray in graphite and pencil. As in his stage productions, Wilson develops form, space, and movement from the interplay of light and shadow.

The Annemarie Verna Gallery presented solo exhibitions of Robert Wilson's drawings, furniture, installations, and videos in 1982, 1989, 1991, and 2000. These works were mostly related to operatic pieces such as "The Golden Windows," "Orlando," "Lohengrin," "Das Rheingold," "Deafman Glance," and "14 Stations."

 

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Annemarie Verna Gallery |  Neptunstrasse 42 |  8032 Zurich |  Switzerland |  Phone +41 44 262 3820 |  Fax +41 44 262 3826 |