Valerio Adami: Early Works of Italian Pop Art at the Secession Exhibition

This exhibition at the Secession showcases the work of Italian Pop-Art artist Valerio Adami, focusing on his early paintings from before 1964. The pieces explore energetic explosions, fragmented figures, and the interplay between abstract and figurative elements, characteristic of his unique style.

The exhibition at the Secession's Graphic Cabinet presents a focused look at Valerio Adami, a prominent figure in Italian Pop Art. It highlights a selection of paintings created before 1964, a phase of his work less commonly explored. These pieces are characterized by a compelling dynamic between expressive abstraction and stylized figuration. The dominant motifs include energetic explosions, wrestling figures, and objects shattering into myriad pieces, all populated by energy fields, cosmic radiation, fire, and dense smoke clouds. Speech bubbles and onomatopoeic words, reminiscent of comic strips, punctuate the visual space, emphasizing the impact of the depicted events. Adami's early works are notable for their development of form through gestural drawing, coupled with painterly textures across various surfaces. This technique allows him to explore the apparent dichotomy between individual emotional expression and objective factuality. His aim was to structurally reinvent visual space, creating works that oscillate between painting and drawing. Adami synthesizes the 'critical intelligence of drawing,' which he saw as access to reality, with a painterly gesture, freeing the image from linear narrative and fixed spatial division. His depictions capture explosive moments without revealing their cause, visualizing the progression of an explosion akin to time-lapse photography. Fragments fly through the air, stars ignite, and the space is flooded with smoke and clouds, rendered either with contouring lines or flat color. He emphasizes lines of flight and movement, imparting a sequential feel to the imagery. Much like Cubists multiplied perspectives to expand space, Adami achieves a layered pictorial reality by depicting multiple moments simultaneously, disregarding logical sequences and their perspectives. Following 1964, Valerio Adami significantly advanced his visual language. The disruptions of his spirited drawing style receded, favoring a style of elementary, clearly defined forms and flat color application. Works from this later period feature isolated fragments of the modern world in shifted perspectives, often embedded in new, frequently politicized contexts. Consequently, alongside Pop Art, Adami was also associated with the Narrative Figuration movement originating in France.

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