After the successes in Rome, Modena, and Paris the artist from Modena is in Bassano del Grappa with an exhibition open to the public until March 25, 2025. Visiting the exhibition “Sergio Padovani. Works from 2018 to 2024” is a complex experience, to be lived at one’s own pace and, if necessary, to be put on hold and resumed after a moment of reflection. It invites an unfiltered dialogue with the problematic conscience of our time and ourselves. Like a modern Tiresias, Sergio Padovani, through his oil, resin and bitumen paintings, confronts us with the contradictions of reality that, through an almost automatic mechanism, we daily hide behind social obligations and the glittering walls that serve as perfect backdrops for our selfies. His works celebrate the triviality and meanness of humanity, blending the infinite resignation of this awareness with the sense of pity that inevitably stems from it.
View of the exhibition “Sergio Padovani. Works from 2018 to 2024”, THE BANK ETS Foundation, Bassano del Grappa, 2024, ground floor, ph. Tommy Ilai & Camilla M., courtesy THE BANK ETS Foundation
For Padovani, «art is salvific». For the artist, it is the only way to make sense of and fully communicate his own feelings; for the viewer, experiencing art becomes an act of catharsis, prompting a reconsideration of all automatic actions and thoughts. In Padovani’s canvases, this idea is translated into a process of self-censorship, whereby he progressively erases the writings he initially sketched on the canvas in an attempt to organize his thoughts compositionally. This technique grants the viewer the freedom to interpret and emotionally connect with the artwork, rejecting the singularity of reality expressed through concepts while leaving a visible trace of his absolutely spontaneous and personal creative process. Simultaneously, Padovani fills his pictorial compositions with iconographies and symbols ingrained in our visual culture, leveraging what Baxandall termed the “Period Eye” – a way of seeing and understanding art that changes based on cultural experiences, available technologies and current aesthetic values. In doing so, he directly engages the viewers, shaking their security structures and making them feel «the weight that the contemporary world has on us», thus questioning the reality we live in and our role within it.
Sergio Padovani, “Nuovi martiri”, 2024, olio, bitume e resina su tela, 190 x 160 cm, courtesy Fondazione THE BANK ETS
The exhibition layout, curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi, perfectly aligns with the artist’s philosophy. The exhibition path is designed to encourage introspection and personal reflection, inviting the viewers to confront their own baggage of experiences, traumas and hopes. The suspended atmosphere, dim lighting and muffled sounds of the space welcome visitors, guiding them on an introspective journey. At the entrance, the large diptych with a golden background, reminiscent of Bosch, Scene misteriose per palazzi tenebrosi (2020), depicts «the sanctity of suffering, which is what makes us human, magnificent in our pain», serving as a catalyst work that clearly introduces Padovani’s philosophy. From this canvas, the exhibition unfolds across the two floors of the former bank in Bassano del Grappa, alternating between very large canvases dominated by intricate constructions of suffering, sometimes deformed and almost putrescent bodies – as in Nuovi martiri (2024) – and smaller works painted on copper plates and adorned with antique frames, exuding a sacred and intimate devotion, as in La bellezza (2024).
View of the exhibition “Sergio Padovani. Works from 2018 to 2024”, THE BANK ETS Foundation, Bassano del Grappa, 2024, ground floor, ph. Tommy Ilai & Camilla M., courtesy THE BANK ETS Foundation
The «courage not to close one’s eyes» of Sergio Padovani is what, in 2019, motivated Antonio Menon to embark as a complete novice on the path of collecting and promoting contemporary art, founding The Bank Contemporary Art Collection, now Fondazione THE BANK ETS – Institute for the Study of Contemporary Painting. The Vicenza-based entrepreneur reacted to the severe economic and social crisis that affected Veneto following the collapse and liquidation of Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza, provocatively choosing to transform the former branch in the heart of Bassano del Grappa, closed since 2017, into a center for the study and promotion of contemporary art. Since 2019, THE BANK ETS has established itself as an example of enlightened artistic patronage with an international scope while remaining firmly rooted in the Veneto territory. The «genuinely unexpected» success of the Italian and European tour dedicated to Sergio Padovani is tangible proof of this.
Miriam Schirato
Info:
Sergio Padovani. Opere dal 2018 al 2024
9/11/2024 – 25/03/2025
Fondazione THE BANK ETS – Istituto per gli Studi sulla Pittura Contemporanea
via Orazio Marinali, 52 – Bassano del Grappa (VI)
www.fondazionethebank.org
is a contemporary art magazine since 1980
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