Galleria Fumagalli and Spazioborgogno present the exhibition by Claude Viallat, “La semplicité évidente” organized in collaboration with Museo Pecci. In a cultural, stimulating and vivid climate breathing in the first years of ’60 years in France, Claude Viallat moves from the necessity to review the genealogy of abstract painting and the seduction of the Informal, without forgetting Cézanne and Matisse, finding in the primitive form his distinctive and inimitable characteristic. During the years of study at the Fine Art School in Paris, where he met Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Morris Louis and other important artists, he definitely abandoned the easel, painting on the ground on unrefined and recyclable surface, such as tents or truck coverages. From 1966 to 1969 he participates in group shows with the artist members of the Nouveau Rèalisme and Fluxus movements and with his companions of the Supports/Surfaces group, exhibiting in places not designated to art like beaches, streets in villages, natural places, claiming a not-secondary role of the province towards Paris.

In this exhibition Claude Viallat presents works from 1974 to 2014, with an important selection of recent works, large paintings on different kind of materials such as sheets, canvas, coverages, textiles, canvas recto/verso, ropes, meshes and sculptures. Describing forty years of activity during which the artist declines his distinctive mark in different colors and stands: a primitive and primordial bean-shape which from 1966 characterizes his paint. Claude Viallat was born in 1936 in Nimes, where he lives and works. Beyond the numerous participations in national and international exhibitions as member of the Supports/Surfaces group, among his most important exhibitions are the anthological at Centre George Pompidou in Paris (1982) and the personal room at the Venice Biennale (1988). In 1997 the collection of Centre Georges Pompidou, counting some of his works, was on view in the rooms of the Contemporary Art Museum of Tokyo.

In 1998 Claude Viallat’s exhibition, titled “Rèpètition”, was housed in China in the spaces of Sanghe Museum of Chengdu, of Kumning Museum of Kumning and of Donguy Museum of Heping. Always in 1998 a solo show was hosted in the spaces of Centre d’Art Contemporain in Le Cailer, and in 1999 at the Institut Français in Rabat (Marocco). In 2000 his works were exhibited at Musèe d’Art Modern of Saint-Etienne, in 2001 at the Mube Museum of Sao Paulo in Brazil and finally in 2003 at the Musèe Auguste Chabaud in Graveson en Provence. In 2005 he exhibited in Seoul (Korea) at Philippe Kang Gallery and in 2006 at Park Ryu Sook Gallery. Recently solo exhibitions were presented at Butzweilerhof Airport, Colonia (Germany), in May 2007, at Salomon Annecy Foundation (France) in March 2008, at the Centre Français de Damas (Syria) in February 2010 and at Kunst Foundation, Bochum (Germany) in September 2013. He had a solo show at Galleria Fumagalli in Bergamo in 2003 and then in 2008, with particular attention to wooden sculpture.