GIUSEPPE CHIARI		Biography
I sei scalini sono la musica		Catalogs
curated by ANDREA ALIBRANDI and ENRICO PEDRINI
23 april – 16 july 2010

The exhibition comes about from a collection of works that Chiari put together from 1987 to the end of the 1990s. The cycle originated from the discovery of a small piano with 6 keys, which Chiari transformed into a work by signing it and then photographing it in various situations. From these first images, he used a colour photocopier, acetates and writing to compose a set of paper works closely connected to the idea that I sei scalini sono la musica (The Six Steps are Music).
Like all the artists that followed the Fluxus experiences, Chiari often used photography to capture and bear witness to his performances. Photographs that starting with his now famous Gesti sul piano (Gestures on the Piano) from the early 1970s make up the other section of the exhibition, alongside some truly rare images such as L’acqua con tre specchi (Water with Three Mirrors, 1979) and the blow-ups of movements on a piano shot on a television screen, then changed into several colours, from 1979.
What is highlighted by these two sets of works is how, through his extreme freedom of expression, Chiari’s use of photography, which at first was the means to capture an incident in one of his performances, transformed into a language that the artist made his own, as he developed it along his own, personal path.

In cooperation with Archivio Giuseppe Chiari.