DEL GIUDICE_

Paolo Del Giudice was born in Treviso in 1952. He lives and works between the city and his home 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 and 2007 he exhibited a series of works entitled: Viaggio in Italia (Italian journey) which summarizes twenty years of research and visually represents opposing aspects of life and culture in the country. These three exhibitions were held in Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna of Palazzo Collicola in Spoleto, at Torre Massimiliana of Sant'Erasmo isle in Venice and at Palazzo Agostinelli in Bassanodel Grappa.

In 2007 an important and anthological exhibition entitled Pietas Mundi was held at Galleria Sagittaria in Pordenone. In march 2008 the Italian journey stopped in Istanbul. About forty oil paintings, including large works, exhibited in the impressive Palace of Dolmabahçe, last residence of the sultans on the banks of Bosphorus. In the same year he begins a series of exhibitions in Italy called Memorie di carta (paper memories), on the theme of paper, from the book to large historical libreries as archives of memory, guested in the spaces of the same ancient libreries. These subjects will converse with the portraits of some of the main poets and authors of the last century. 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.