Portrait de Valerio Adami par Philippe Bonan
Durant ses études à l’académie des Beaux-Arts de la Brera à Milan de 1951 à 1954 sous la direction d’Achille Funi, l’un des initiateurs du mouvement artistique du Novenceto, Valerio Adami se passionne pour les artistes de la Renaissance et s’initie à l’art mural. Dessiner des moulages antiques a marqué la mémoire de sa main et il aime à dire qu’il cherche par le dessin « les équivalents du passé simple, du présent et du futur ». Se réclamant de la tradition académique, il se réfère aussi à l’esthétique du chef de fil du néoclassicisme allemand, Raphaël Mengs (1728-1779). Dès 1963, Adami élabore son langage plastique. Il fusionne de façon magistrale les influences de l’imaginaire surréaliste de Wifredo Lam et de Roberto Matta à la nostalgie du Cubisme d’Alberto Magnelli et de Juan Gris dans des œuvres très graphiques marquées par des dislocations formelles. Paradoxalement la découverte de la fragmentation du dessin cubiste lui a permis de confirmer ses ambitions classiques par la description de l’objet dans une réalité physique complexe et simultanée. La fragmentation de l’espace, les effets de relief et de tridimensionnalité vont laisser la place à une ligne serpentine et sensuelle dans des suites de formes closes. Il joue sur les juxtapositions, les mélanges, la fusion des idées, des émotions, des impulsions avec toujours la ligne qui est le véritable paraphe de son esthétique. Cette ligne très accusée est le point de départ et la fin du dessin, elle signe son style, c’est son écriture. Ce cerné, ce trait contour, enserre aussi bien les événements historiques, les paysages, les portraits de célébrités et mène du réel au symbolique, à une sorte d’allégorie culturelle aussi bien que personnelle. Peintre de la vie moderne par excellence, acteur incontournable de la Figuration narrative, Adami étudie l’urbanité intime en même temps que collective. Il explore des endroits de passages, des lieux privés, certains confinés et feutrés, d’autres ouverts à l’aventure, des espaces où la notion du temps est exacerbée ou fugitive : salles de bain, toilettes publiques, hall et chambres d’hôtel, vitrines de magasins, compartiments de trains... Il propose un message philosophique sur la peinture et passe de vues au Chelsea Hôtel de New York dans les années 1960 à des commentaires sur l’actualité inspirés par la mythologie dans les années 2000, toujours scandés par des associations ambigües à la sexualité sous-jacente sorties de son inconscient. La surface du tableau est la page sur laquelle vont se nouer et se dénouer tous les récits mais les traces de notre monde réel, de cette vie contemporaine qu’il imprime sont faussement figuratives. Avec ses aplats de tonalités pures et sans ombres, c’est la couleur qui devient dessin, syllabes, mots. Son œuvre fascine car elle nous fait prendre conscience que cet univers de choses visibles dans lequel nous travaillons, nous habitons, nous voyageons, nous vivons, nous aimons... reflète aussi notre solitude, notre enfermement face à nous-même. A ses yeux, la peinture est affaire « de tissu moral » : il s’agit « d’éloigner les gens de l’intolérance, de coller à l’événement un espoir, une vérité, cette vocation vers le divin où se reconnaît cet autre tissu, mythologique, qui soutient une culture ». Dans la continuité de son compatriote Giorgio de Chirico, l’œuvre d’Adami est un voyage mental qui fait appel à la mémoire collective et culturelle. Il nous plonge dans un univers où la simple réalité se fait métaphysique quand chaque instant revécu à travers le filtre des souvenirs devient le déclencheur d’images nouvelles et éblouissantes.
During his studies at the Brera Academy Fine Arts in Milan from 1951 to 1954, and directed by Achille Funi, one of the founders of the Novecento artistic movement, Valerio Adami became fascinated by Renaissance artists and initiated himself to mural art. Drawing antique molds has marked his hand’s memory and he likes to say that he seeks in drawing “the equivalents of a simple past, present and future”. Claiming to be part of the academic tradition, he also refers to the aesthetic of German Neoclacissim’s master, Raphaël Mengs (1728-1779). Since 1963, Adami has been elaborating his plastic language. He majestically combines the influences of Wifredo Lam and Roberto Matta with the nostalgia of Alberto Magnelli and Juan Gris Cubism in very graphic works marked by formal dislocations. Paradoxically, the discovery of fragmentation of a Cubist drawing allowed him to confirm his classical ambitions by describing the object in a complex and simultaneous physical reality. The fragmentation of space, and the effects of surface and three-dimensionality give way to a serpentine and sensual line in suites of closed forms. His work plays on juxtapositions, combinations, the fusion of ideas, emotions, impulses, always using the line which is the true signature of his aesthetic. This very sharp line is the starting point and the end of the drawing, it is his signature style, his writing. This outline, this contour line, encloses historical events, landscapes, portraits of celebrities and leads from the real to the symbolic, to a kind of cultural as well as personal allegory. An ultimate painter of modern life, a key player in the Narrative Figuration, Adami studies, both intimate and collective urbanity. He explores places of passage, private places, some closed and hushed, others open to adventure, places where the notion of time is exacerbated or elusive: bathrooms, public toilets, hotel lobbies and rooms, store windows, train compartments... He offers a philosophical message about painting, moving from views of New York's Chelsea Hotel in the 1960s to comments on current events in the 2000s inspired by mythology, always rythmed by ambiguous associations with underlying sexuality that emerges from his subconscious. The surface of the painting is the page on which all the narratives are tied and untied, but the traces of our real world, of this contemporary life that he prints are falsely figurative. With his flat tones of pure and shadowless tones, it is the color that becomes drawing, syllables, words. His work fascinates the viewer because it makes them aware that this world of visible things in which we work, we live, we travel, we live, we love ... also reflects our solitude, our isolation. In his eyes, painting is a matter of "moral fabric": it is a matter of "keeping people away from intolerance, of sticking to the event of a hope, a truth, this vocation towards the divine where this other fabric, mythological, is recognized, it supports a culture". In the continuity of his compatriot Giorgio de Chirico, the work of Adami is a mental journey appealing to the collective and cultural memory. He plunges us into a world where simple reality becomes metaphysical, and when each moment that is lived again through the filter of memories becomes a trigger for new dazzling images.
During his studies at the Brera Academy Fine Arts in Milan from 1951 to 1954, and directed by Achille Funi, one of the founders of the Novecento artistic movement, Valerio Adami became fascinated by Renaissance artists and initiated himself to mural art. Drawing antique molds has marked his hand’s memory and he likes to say that he seeks in drawing “the equivalents of a simple past, present and future”. Claiming to be part of the academic tradition, he also refers to the aesthetic of German Neoclacissim’s master, Raphaël Mengs (1728-1779). Since 1963, Adami has been elaborating his plastic language. He majestically combines the influences of Wifredo Lam and Roberto Matta with the nostalgia of Alberto Magnelli and Juan Gris Cubism in very graphic works marked by formal dislocations. Paradoxically, the discovery of fragmentation of a Cubist drawing allowed him to confirm his classical ambitions by describing the object in a complex and simultaneous physical reality. The fragmentation of space, and the effects of surface and three-dimensionality give way to a serpentine and sensual line in suites of closed forms. His work plays on juxtapositions, combinations, the fusion of ideas, emotions, impulses, always using the line which is the true signature of his aesthetic. This very sharp line is the starting point and the end of the drawing, it is his signature style, his writing. This outline, this contour line, encloses historical events, landscapes, portraits of celebrities and leads from the real to the symbolic, to a kind of cultural as well as personal allegory. An ultimate painter of modern life, a key player in the Narrative Figuration, Adami studies, both intimate and collective urbanity. He explores places of passage, private places, some closed and hushed, others open to adventure, places where the notion of time is exacerbated or elusive: bathrooms, public toilets, hotel lobbies and rooms, store windows, train compartments... He offers a philosophical message about painting, moving from views of New York's Chelsea Hotel in the 1960s to comments on current events in the 2000s inspired by mythology, always rythmed by ambiguous associations with underlying sexuality that emerges from his subconscious. The surface of the painting is the page on which all the narratives are tied and untied, but the traces of our real world, of this contemporary life that he prints are falsely figurative. With his flat tones of pure and shadowless tones, it is the color that becomes drawing, syllables, words. His work fascinates the viewer because it makes them aware that this world of visible things in which we work, we live, we travel, we live, we love ... also reflects our solitude, our isolation. In his eyes, painting is a matter of "moral fabric": it is a matter of "keeping people away from intolerance, of sticking to the event of a hope, a truth, this vocation towards the divine where this other fabric, mythological, is recognized, it supports a culture". In the continuity of his compatriot Giorgio de Chirico, the work of Adami is a mental journey appealing to the collective and cultural memory. He plunges us into a world where simple reality becomes metaphysical, and when each moment that is lived again through the filter of memories becomes a trigger for new dazzling images.