Thomas Braida
SOLO
Curated by Caroline Corbetta
9 May – 5 June 2017
Devi essere un po’ animale per arrivare ai sentimenti più profondi e capire come gettarli fuori con un pennello in mano.
In occasione della 57. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Thomas Braida, giovane pittore italiano di poche parole e abbondante produzione, torna nella “sua” Venezia con una mostra personale, curata da Caroline Corbetta, in un allestimento concepito per le storiche stanze del cinquecentesco Palazzo Nani Bernardo.
Thomas Braida (Gorizia, 1982), prima del suo estemporaneo trasferimento a Torino, ha trascorso tredici anni a Venezia, dove si è diplomato all’Accademia delle Belle Arti e, nel 2013, era tra i giovani talenti veneziani che hanno spopolato nei giorni della vernice della Biennale di quell’anno col Padiglione Crepaccio
Ora Thomas torna a Venezia, da solo. Solo, di fronte al suo lavoro e all’ammaliante retaggio della città con una mostra personale che li mette in dialogo. Il progetto espositivo, intitolato SOLO, si sviluppa nell’affascinante infilata di stanze del piano nobile di Palazzo Nani Bernardo che culminano con un affaccio mozzafiato sul Canal Grande; in questo scenario si inseriscono una cinquantina di opere di Braida, molte delle quali realizzate ad hoc. Tra queste anche delle sculture che l’artista definisce comunque pittura: «Tutto è pittura per me. È come qualcosa di vivo che autonomamente se ne vuole uscire dal quadro, che se ne fotte. Tutto è pittura nel senso che guardo tutto attraverso il colore. Che tutto è fatto di colore».
Nel continuo rimando tra riferimenti pop e cultura “alta”, tra mitologia e storia, tra cronaca e narrazione, la ricerca di Braida spicca per uno stile originale che pur citando brani della tradizione pittorica europea, in particolare dell’iconografia Rinascimentale e Barocca, spazia tra tanti, eterogenei riferimenti, come racconta l’artista: «Da piccolo, a Vienna, ero rimasto molto affascinato dalle farfalle nelle bacheche del museo di storia naturale. Avevo tre anni e me lo ricordo ancora benissimo. A volte penso che mi sarebbe piaciuto essere un poeta francese tipo Verlaine; o un pittore come Grosz nella Germania degli anni Venti; ma anche Goya».
I personaggi spesso grotteschi delle sue opere e la materia pastosa della sua pittura – che talvolta tracima dalla tela per trasformare oggetti d’uso quotidiano e grumi di argilla in sculture- trovano il loro posto tra settecentesche tappezzerie di seta e urne di alabastro di epoca romana, tra statuine di Meissen e tavoli di malachite. Imbevuto di storia, eppure iper-
contemporaneo, l’immaginario di Thomas s’innesta nei preziosi decori e arredi di Palazzo Nani Bernardo in un susseguirsi di contrapposizioni e di armonie, come se i suoi lavori appartenessero a quei luoghi da sempre ma, allo stesso tempo, aprissero degli imprevedibili squarci narrativi nel decadente splendore della Serenissima.
In occasione della mostra, viene presentato il decimo numero delle monografie d’artista SOLO. Dedicata a Thomas Braida, la pubblicazione contiene un testo della curatrice Caroline Corbetta e un’intervista di Maurizio Cattelan. SOLO è un progetto editoriale della Collezione AmC Coppola (Art Director Paolo De Biasi).
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You have to be a bit of an “animal” to delve into your deepest feelings and understand how to let them come out with a brush in your hand.
For the 57th Venice Biennale the young, reserved but extremely prolific Italian painter Thomas Braida will be coming “home” with a solo show curated by Caroline Corbetta and conceived for the rooms of the 16th-century Palazzo Nani Bernardo.
Prior to his sudden move to Turin, Thomas Braida (Gorizia, 1982) spent over ten years in Venice, where he graduated from the city’s fine arts academy. In 2013 he was part of a group of talented young artists based in Venice who exhibited their works – to widespread acclaim – at the Padiglione Crepaccio at during that year’s Biennale.
Now Thomas is back in town – alone – with a solo show in which his works dialogue with Venice’s bewitching legacy. Entitled SOLO (which means alone in Italian), the exhibition has been conceived within the magical enfilade of rooms on the piano nobile of Palazzo Nani Bernardo, culminating with a breath-taking view of the Grand Canal. Approximately fifty of Braida’s pieces will be arranged in this space and some have been specifically conceived for it. These include sculptures, which Braida nonetheless terms paintings: “Everything is painting for me. It’s like something alive that independently wants to come out of the picture, that doesn’t give a damn about it. Everything is painting in the sense that I look at everything through colour. That everything is made of colour.”
In its continuous cross-referencing between pop and “high” culture, mythology and history, the real and the imaginary, Braida’s artistic research stands out for its original style. While constantly alluding to the European painting tradition, particularly that of the Renaissance and the Baroque, he bristles with a constellation of disparate other references, as the artist himself admits. “When I was a child, in Vienna, I was simply fascinated by the butterflies in the display cases of the natural history museum. I was just three years old at the time and I still remember them perfectly. Sometimes I fantasize about being a French poet, such as Verlaine, or a painter such as Grosz in 1920s Germany, but also Goya.”
Braida’s gallery of grotesque characters and the tactile quality of his painting – which sometimes spills out of the canvas to transform everyday objects and clumps of clay into sculptures – will be arranged among Palazzo Nani Bernardo’s 18th-century silk tapestries,
Roman-era alabaster urns, Meissen figurines and malachite tables. Steeped in history and yet ultra-contemporary, the artist’s imagination grafts itself perfectly onto the priceless interior of the palace, in a sequence of juxtapositions and harmonies, as if his works had always belonged here. And yet they open up unpredictable narrative vistas onto the dazzling decadence of the Serenissima.
The tenth issue of SOLO, a monographic publication, will be presented at the exhibition. Devoted to Thomas Braida, it will feature an essay by the curator Caroline Corbetta and an interview with Maurizio Cattelan. SOLO is a publishing project of Collezione AmC Coppola (Art Director Paolo De Biasi).
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Thomas Braida was born 35 years ago in the far northeast corner of Italy. He has always painted prolifically, be it on canvas or magazine pages, notebooks and discarded objects – practically on anything he could lay his hands on. After spending years in Venice, he now lives in Turin. Braida participated in the 94th Collettiva Giovani Artisti, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa di Venezia in 2010, where he was first noticed by curator Caroline Corbetta, who has since shown his work a number of times at IL CREPACCIO in Milan. His solo shows include those held at Monitor in Rome (2016) and Monitor Studio New York (2014), as well as Gust van Dijk’s Home to Contemporary Art in Tillburg, the Netherlands. That same year he participated in the SHIT&DIE group show at Palazzo Cavour, Turin, curated by Maurizio Cattelan with Myriam Ben Salah and Marta Papini. In 2013 he was among the artists exhibiting at Istanbul is very busy at the SEA Foundation, Istanbul. Thomas Braida is represented by Monitor, Rome/Lisbon.
A relentlessly freelance curator Caroline Corbetta has two obsessions: promoting contemporary art to the public at large, or creating a “mass avant-garde”, and discovering emerging talents. Her “discoveries” include Nathalie Djurberg and Ragnar Kjartansson from the Nordic Biennial in 2004. Her cross-cutting, inclusive approach enables her to move effortlessly from the artistic direction of institutional pavilions such as Expo Gate, for Expo Milano 2015, to projects such as IL CREPACCIO, a Milan showcase for young artists. Corbetta curates shows and public projects for international brands as well as institutions such as the Moderna Museet of Stockholm and Performa in New York, but also finds time to write for a variety of magazines such as Mousse, Vogue Italia and Domus.
Palazzo Nani Bernardo Calle Bernardo / Dorsoduro 3197 / on the Canal Grande between Ca’ Foscari and Ca’ Rezzonico / May 9 – June 5, 10am – 6pm / until 8pm on May 9,10,11 & 12 / Vaporetto stop Ca’ Rezzonico Info Monitor – Manuela Contino / monitor@monitoronline.org / +39 06 39378024 / +39 338 2362095
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