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Lot Essay
‘Since Giorgio Griffa began working as an artist...his oeuvre remains a kind of “simple mystery,” as it were, not entirely unveiled... Over
the years, it became clearer that Griffa’s work aspires to exist in an imaginary space-time continuum, a dimension cohabited by the archaic and the contemporary, the stasis of mythical time and the progress of the present. In this perspective, the decorative motifs —whether drawn from Buren or from a timeless popular heritage— contribute to this search for a language endowed with a mythological quality. Indeed, although in line with the 1960s and ’70s avant-garde, Griffa’s decorativism has ancient origins. It is rooted in the history and prehistory of painting and writing, in the ornamental motives of ancient cultures’ (L. Cerizza, quoted in L. Cerizza, ‘Souvenir D’Italie’, in Kaleidoscope, Issue 17, Winter 2012-13, pp. 114-121).
the years, it became clearer that Griffa’s work aspires to exist in an imaginary space-time continuum, a dimension cohabited by the archaic and the contemporary, the stasis of mythical time and the progress of the present. In this perspective, the decorative motifs —whether drawn from Buren or from a timeless popular heritage— contribute to this search for a language endowed with a mythological quality. Indeed, although in line with the 1960s and ’70s avant-garde, Griffa’s decorativism has ancient origins. It is rooted in the history and prehistory of painting and writing, in the ornamental motives of ancient cultures’ (L. Cerizza, quoted in L. Cerizza, ‘Souvenir D’Italie’, in Kaleidoscope, Issue 17, Winter 2012-13, pp. 114-121).