Milan, 35 Capricci by Wainer Vaccari on display at Carlocinque Gallery

From February 7 to April 5, 2024, the Carlocinque Gallery in Milan is exhibiting 35 Capricci by Wainer Vaccari (Modena, Italy, 1949). Thirty-five works created specifically for this exhibition and for this exhibition space throughout 2023, and executed in unbroken order like the layout of a hypothetical as much as real book. Each oil-on-canvas painting, of the same dimensions (40 x 30 cm), is intended to express a unique vision, characterized by a strong emphasis on colors; in fact, Vaccari, in this restrained measure, is able, with just a few skillful touches of the brush, to condense a complete synthesis of his pictorial imagination. What is created can be called precisely a narrative.

Vaccari’s art is a portal, an invitation to reflect on the human condition in ways that transcend time and space, uniting them with deep psychological introspection. His work is a fabric of stories, a stage on which a slow-paced comedy unfolds, and an ongoing exploration of the human soul and its capacity to imagine and create worlds. Wainer Vaccari is an artist who, through his unique skill, invites the viewer to look beyond the superficiality of the image, to explore the depths of human existence and to find beauty and meaning in the inexplicable.

For Wainer Vaccari’s Capricci, Alberto Bertoni, professor of Contemporary Italian Literature and Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry at the Department of Classical Philology and Italianistics at the University of Bologna and poet, composed the following poem.

A whim of verse

Forever shall this be the gateway,
the bottleneck mistaken for a miracle
Where threat and attempt pass
To challenge you even now in a tale
Unable to stand still
Until the strangest and blackest gesture
Of your breasts beholding my skull?

You as an echo
Far away of crashing
Where your lake is marsh,
thou my delight and my torture
When the heel fades
In the dismay of an empty shoe
At the end of the road in the wake
Farther and more alone

Nothing else for a moment flies
Than the red litany of the dress
As she dives naked
And his head catches fire
Arrow or spear aimed at the sky
low of a ceiling from whose center
All once more begins again

But becomes my lap a navel
a rustling pinwheel
ready to explode
While undaunted I enjoy
your moment and your face
just before the flight
While we chase each other like
replicants or thinkers
one attached to the other
to circumnavigate an arc
surviving circle

Whimsy and little else
actually almost everything as I dig
a ravine in place
Of the gully I hoped
Of meeting at the end of the night
in these uninterrupted movements
Of bumps and thoughts, thuds and silences
With no boundaries other than
my clown nose the almond
oblong of your eyes
whimsical braid
And psychology failing
now that from far away
I think of you and save you
Until I too remain like them
completely bald

Biographical notes

Born in Modena in 1949, where he still lives and works, Wainer Vaccari is an Italian painter, sculptor and illustrator. His career took a significant turn in 1983 with a solo show organized by Galleria Emilio Mazzoli, an event that marked the beginning of a series of important exhibitions that helped consolidate his reputation internationally. The dialogue with art critic Achille Bonito Oliva, who invited Vaccari to two important group exhibitions he curated(The School of Athens in Acireale and the Trigon Biennial in Graz), also dates back to this period. These were years in which Vaccari’s painting, having lost the initial influence of the German New Objectivity, began to measure itself against the mannerist art of the Italian sixteenth century and the visionary figuration of the Nordic nineteenth century, opening up to new contexts. In fact, the outcomes of these researches lead Vaccari to extend his exhibition activities outside the Italian borders, meeting the favor of important European institutions. Over the next ten years, his works are received by private galleries, such as the Susan Wyss in Zurich, Jule Kewenig in FrechenBachem, Cologne, and the Thomas Levy in Hamburg, and museums, including that of Horsens, Denmark, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, Holland, and the Kunstverein in Munich. Also taking notice of his work was the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, which acquired one of his large works entitled Tondo in 1992. The late 1990s are punctuated by a number of one-man shows that consolidate Vaccari’s presence on the international art scene, such as the 1997 one at Galerie Thomas in Munich and, in the following two years, those at Galerie Numaga in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and at the Redfern Gallery in London. His fortunes abroad do not prevent Vaccari from maintaining contact with Italy, producing a solo exhibition at the Galleria Civica in Modena in 1994, which was followed, between 1996 and 1997, by three exhibitions at the Forni Gallery in Bologna, the Goethe Gallery in Bolzano and the Galleria dello Scudo in Verona. In 1999 he was invited to the thirteenth edition of the Quadriennale in Rome. In 2008 he participated in the Beijing Biennale, while in 2011 he was among the artists exhibited at the Italian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. Also of note is the exhibition Lieblingsbilder aus der Sammlung Grosshaus held in 2013 at Schloss Gottdorf in Schleswig. In 2015 Vaccari exhibited again at the Levy Galerie in Hamburg, while in 2017 he returned to collaborate with Emilio Mazzoli with an exhibition entitled Visioni diverse, curated by Flavio Arensi, which was followed the following year by another solo show at the Berlin branch of the Modena gallery. Instead, from 2019 is Stazioni, a research on the theme of hope commissioned by Elisabetta Sgarbi and hosted in Bormio in the context of the event La Milanesiana. In 2021 the artist is present with two works specially created for the exhibition on Raffaello at Mart in Rovereto, in the Raffaello /Wainer Vaccari focus curated by Vittorio Sgarbi. In 2022 he is the protagonist at the Galleria Civica in Trento with a solo exhibition entitled Certezze soggettive from an idea by Vittorio Sgarbi, curated by Gabriele Lorenzoni and Carlo Sala.

The exhibition can be visited at Carlocinque Gallery, 31 Via dell’Annunciata, Milan, Tuesday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays from 3 to 7:30 p.m., and by appointment. For appointment call +39 02 91558394. Vernissage Feb. 7, 2024 from 6:30 p.m.

For info: www.carlocinquegallery.com

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Wainer Vaccari,(

Milan, 35 Capricci by Wainer Vaccari on display at Carlocinque Gallery

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