Confcommercio Bergamo embraces contemporary art, hosting two canvases by the visual artist from Bergamo Manuel Bonfanti. A way to enhance the artist’s commitment, with the exhibition of two works in the city headquarters in via Borgo Palazzo 137, in view of his participation in Venice to 2024 Art Biennial of theEuropean Cultural Centre. Manuel Bonfanti will in fact participate for the first time in the Biennial of the European Cultural Centre, an initiative coinciding with the Venice Art Biennale.
From April 20th to November 24th it will be exhibited at Mora Palaceas part of the collective exhibition entitled «Beyond Boundaries», the pictorial work «In the Middle of Now-Where». The enormous canvas, made with mixed media, of twenty square meters, between transparencies and material stratifications, with a deep and oceanic blue traced and then scraped, repainted and rewashed, expresses and reaffirms, through the denial of space and time, the going beyond boundaries and spiritual restructuring and reconstruction of the self. A free space where you can imagine again to build your soul.
«Now-where is utopia, a utopian world that is denied precisely by the Here and the Now, in front of me, here, before my eyes» explains the artist Manuel Bonfanti. «It is an honor to ideally accompany an artist of value like Manuel Bonfanti to Venice, who enthusiastically involved us in the exhibition of two of his works in our venue- comments Oscar Fusini, director of Confcommercio Bergamo – . We are confident in the success of the collective exhibition at Palazzo Mora and we invite entrepreneurs to visit the exhibition in Venice, in conjunction with the Biennale”.
«In the Middle of Now-Where» represents the third important project of Aedificante Onlusa cultural initiative by the Bergamo entrepreneur Giuseppe Taramelli and his wife Stefania Gambirasio dedicated to the human values of building. The abstract painting measuring 6.50 meters by 3 meters in height represents an imposing building of the soul, which captures the view by occupying entirely one of the walls of Palazzo Mora, the prestigious headquarters in Strada Nova in Cannaregio of the cultural institution European Cultural Center founded by the Dutch artist Rene Rietmeyer in 2002.
«From the emptiness symbolized by In the Middle of Now-Where everything is reborn, with the aim of elevating us with the elegance of form and matter. For this reason, the Bergamo entrepreneur Giuseppe Taramelli (Taramelli Srl, specialized in the reconstruction of buildings, with national projects, such as the Bottega Veneta headquarters in Palazzo San Fedele in Milan, and international ones from China to England) wanted to support the research by Bonfanti with Aedificante for a new culture of reconstruction: «We look at art very carefully, because designers, architects, craftsmen and workers can always learn from artists. Creating beauty consciously makes us human; if we look carefully, both works of art and buildings become the mirror of our soul.”
Manuel Bonfanti was born in Bergamo in 1974, the city where he lives and works. He graduated in Milan atBrera Academy of Fine Arts. You have exhibited over the years in Italy and abroad. His research focuses on the aesthetic relationship between the sublime, space and light, often treated with large canvases. After the inauguration in Venice, on 20 April, as part of the aforementioned collective «Beyond Boundaries» at the European Cultural Center in Palazzo Mora, in Milan the Area 35 Art Gallery (in via Vigevano, 35), will host from 23 April (vernissage at 6.30pm, exhibition until 24 May) the personal exhibition dedicated to the artist. The exhibition “Visions Unveiled, In The Middle of Now-Where”, with Giacomo Marco Valerio curator, represents an important retrospective dedicated to the artist, covering the last fifteen years of his career and the evolution of his expressive language. The preparatory canvas for the work «In the Middle of Now-Where», 108×180 cm, created in 2024 with mixed media, is exhibited in the Confcommercio Bergamo headquarters. Also on display «Air Space», 100×150 cm, created in 2022 with mixed media on canvas.
