"The first time I saw those swathes of cloth, dense with colour and solvent, cast aside after being used to clean the rotary printing presses of the "Corriere", it struck me that these were the memories of our time, true secular shrouds. The shrouds of the world's news, erased, dissolved and transmogrified into blurred blotches of green, blue, black and red. Huge abstract paintings in a kaleidoscope of colour. The shrouds of our time." Gianluigi Colin, 2018.
Electa publishes the catalogue for Sudari, Gianluigi Colin’s personal exhibition on at the Triennale di Milano from 11 May to 10 June 2018.
The catalogue was written by Stefano Boeri, Aldo Colonetti, Gianluigi Colin and Bruno Corà, and features illustrations of 16 large canvases created for the exhibition at the Triennale, together with a small diptych.
Colin’s Sudari (Shrouds) are a sequence of abstract works charged with strong chromatic hues, striped patterns and extended uniform coats of paint. But what makes this collection truly fascinating is its genesis, which highlights the artist’s personal history and the conceptual roots of his recent research. Gianluigi Colin has collected the large swab cloths used to clean the rotary printing presses from different newspapers. They are essentially “rotary-paintings”; swathes of polyester fabric used to symbolically “remove” the world’s news.
The canvases represent Colin’s different identities as an artist, art director and journalist. They sprang from the flotsam and jetsam of the printing works, pregnant with the memories of days, months and years of world news, soaked in ink and collective energy. Authentic alphabet soups, the nuts and bolts of every form of writing.