EXHIBITION - REDISCOVERING

GIAN BERTO VANNI:

THE EARLY YEARS - 1952–1960

In Coste [Coasts], Vanni extends the principle of spatial dispersion he first tested in Spazio a frammenti, but with a new emphasis on horizontal sweep and compositional openness. A vast field of desaturated periwinkle blue spans the right half of the painting, not as backdrop but as an autonomous surface, subtly inflected by tonal modulations and framed by a series of fractal-like eruptions at the edges.

The periphery bristles with activity: clusters of green, yellow, and aquamarine tesserae gather along the top, left, and right borders, forming lattice structures and pixelated arcs that seem to exert centrifugal force on the painting’s interior.

Rather than suggesting volume or delineating shapes, these small chromatic events operate as zones of rupture, as if the plane were being peeled or frayed outward. At the margins, the color intensifies, gaining in saturation and contrast. Toward the center, the blue softens into pale lavender and lilac, evoking a zone of suspension, like a sky between storms or a sea at rest.

While Vanni’s luminous fields recall the chromatic expanses of Color Field painting, his approach differs by using scale and precise, pixel-like articulations to create tension within the dialogue between form and field, rather than relying on immersive color alone.

The title, Coste, frames the painting as a meditation on thresholds: not land or water, but the place where the two meet and influence each other. It is a painting of transition, where solidity gives way to atmosphere, and structure dissolves into radiant stillness.