Born in Trapani in 1924, Carla Accardi passed away in Rome in 2014. In the early ’40s she attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo and, for several months, the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. In 1947 she made her first abstract painting and established the Gruppo Forma (Forma I is the name of the first and sole issue of the magazine-manifesto) together with Ugo Attardi, Pietro Consagra, Piero Dorazio, Mino Guerrini, Achille Perilli, Antonio Sanfilippo and Giulio Turcato. Until 1952 Carla Accardi’s work developed on concrete painting, a language that she discovered in Paris. Later on, starting from 1953, she started focusing on signs and colored “figures” that over the years evolved in sets of white and black segments, sometimes red. In the 1960s, Carla Accardi’s work encountered a stylistic change featuring the use of more vivid tones and new signs; in this period she started to create the first works on Sicofoil, a transparent plastic material that occupied the artist’s research in the following decade.

Her solo exhibitions were held in prestigious institutions such as: MUSMA, Matera (2013), Puglisi Foundation – Palazzo Valle, Catania (2011), Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2008), MACRO, Rome (2004), Musée d’Art Moderne de the Ville de Paris (2002), MOMA PS1, New York (2001), Museum of Contemporary Art – Castello di Rivoli and Kunstmuseum, Bonn (1998), Academy of France, Rome (1997), Kunstverein, Ludwigshafen am Rhein (1995), Galleria Civica, Modena (1989), Italian Institute of Culture, Madrid (1985), PAC, Milan (1983), Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea, Florence (1952). Among the most important group exhibitions in public and private institutions: MACTE, Termoli and Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Roma (2019), Museion, Bolzano (2018), Museo del Novecento, Milan (2017), Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2013, 2002), Palazzo Fortuny, Venice (2011), MAXXI, Rome (2010), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2009), MOCA, Los Angeles (2007), GAM, Turin (2003), Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (2002), MOMA PS1, New York (1999), Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna (1998), Guggenheim Museum, New York (1994), Royal Academy of Arts, London (1989), Palazzo Reale, Milan (1980), GNAM, Rome (1953).

Among the international exhibitions: Rome Quadriennale (2005, 1992, 1973, 1965, 1955), Venice Biennale (1993, 1988, 1978, 1976, 1964, 1948), Sao Paulo Biennial (1971). Her collaboration with Galleria Fumagalli began in 1993 with her own solo exhibition curated by Giovanni Maria Accame, who also wrote a text for the catalog. It continued in 1995 with the editing of a volume published during the exhibitions at the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen am Reim, at the Stadtische Galerie Wolfsburg and at the Italian Cultural Institute in Wolfsburg. In 1999 Edizioni Charta published the first catalogue raisonné of Carla Accardi which presented her artistic production from the beginning until 1997, curated by Germano Celant and with the support of Galleria Fumagalli; since 2000 the book is also available in English edition.

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS

CARLA ACCARDI

Opening 20 January, 1996
23 January to 1 March, 1996

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CARLA ACCARDI
Una forma d’esistenza

1993-1994

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GROUP EXHIBITIONS

AAVV:30

Opening 27 November, 2004
30 November, 2004 to 20 January, 2005

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Uscita di sicurezza

October 1996

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