Pino Pinelli was born in 1938 in Catania, where he made his studies. In 1963 he moved to Milan, where he lives and works. In those years, he was attracted and fascinated by the artistic debate, which was truly alive thanks to personalities as Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani. He is considered one of the great est exponents of "Analytical painting". At the beginning of the Seventies Pinelli opened an experimental phase in his work, he focused on the pictorial surface and its vibrations, exploring the essential connection between tradition and innovation: The Topologies and Monochromes series were realised in this period. Surfaces became slightly uneasy, as if the artist wanted to offer us the tension of painting itself. Nevertheless, from 1976 Pinelli decreased the size of his paintings. Hanged on the walls his paintings looked like broken into fragments by an explosion and disseminated into space.
Pino Pinelli
Artists
Pinelli’s work challenges the traditional idea of painting by creating works that mimic either outlines or geometric trails, and by utilizing the materials themselves to give solidity to the artwork. The artist put aside canvas and stretcher to focus on the concept of painting itself. By combining simple geometric shapes and predominantly primary colours, Pino Pinelli has created a unique art that cannot comfortably be categorized and yet serves as a powerful minimalist statement.
He has participated to many exhibitions in Italy and abroad:
In 1986 he was invited to the Venice Biennale, where he returned in 1997. He took part in the Rome Quadriennale in 1986 and 2006, and in the Lalit Kala Akademi Art Trienniale in New Delhi. He has exhibited in various museums, amongst which: the Galleria Civica in Modena, the Galleria Civica in Turin, the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, the Galleria Nazionale in Rome, Villa Arson in Nice, the Kunstverein in Hannover, Haus am Waldsee in Berlin, the Kunstverein in Bregenz, the Hochshule für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, the Kunstverein in Frankfurt, Villa Croce in Genova, CAMC in La Spezia, Triennale in Milan
His works are in numerous permanent museum collections.