Agenda Venezia

Richier rediscovered

 

In 1952, at the Biennale of Venice, Palma Bucarelli, then director of the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, bought the statue “The ogre” by Germaine Richier; there was an immediate polemic for the akwardness of the piece of art, a rare example of informal sculpture. Now, a variation of this subject is exhibited at the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice, in the anthologic show dedicated to this French artist, open until February 5. The exhibition, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, rediscovers the work of Richier (1902 – 1959), who has been very famous at European level since the end of the 30’s of last century, with several participations in the Biennali, starting from the one in 1948, but recently ignored. In the Guggenheim collection itself there is her “Tauromachia”, made in 1956 and bought in 1960 from Peggy, where the skull without flesh of the animal is held from a horn from the bullfighter, as a trophy.

Her beginnings are definitely classical, as shown by the drawings and the first busts, such as the portrait of her model “Regodias”of which are shown the preparatory plaster, the definitive one and the bronze realization between 1938 and 1939.

During the 40’s, shapes start to decompose in a progressive taking out the flesh from the figures: the change becomes definitive in 1946 with “ The mantis”, startling declination of an antropomorphic insect, followed by “The ant” of 1953. Another fundamental moment is the threadlike “Don Quixote” (1950-51) the highest point of convergency with the style of a Giacometti.

Bodies, even when they keep their solidity, lose the initial smoothness, they are clots of material that change the face expression or even delete it. An example are the two statues representing the quintessence of male and female, rightly exhibited one in front of the other, almost a modern version of the eternal myth of Adam and Eve, although the name is different: “The storm” (1947- 48) is the title chosen by Richier for the male nude; “The hurricane” (1948- 49) for the female one, suggesting the many thunderstorms crossing the relationship between the two sexes.

In the 50’s, the artist experiments different materials beside bronze, using lead, with the insertion of pieces of glass: a further evolution in her style, sadly interrupted by a premature death.