Credito Valtellinese Group is hosting the exhibition dedicated to the Adami Collection, in the Stelline Refectory. The collection includes 77 items, among which 43 big paintings and 34 drawings on paper the artist has been painting since 1983. The exhibits, together with works by Mengs, Appiani, Mirņ, Giacometti, Steinberg and more works, which are not exhibited, represent the Institut du Dessin Fondation Adami Fund, that is both a cultural and economic guarantee. The Institut du Dessin centre will be opened in Meina (Maggiore Lake).

In August 1995, the artist decided to create the Adami Foundation, an institution with a European calling. Before finding their standing placing at the Foundation, the works will be exhibited in Milan, at Credito Valtellinese group gallery, and then in Tel Aviv, Miami and Buenos Aires.

Although we cannot easily classify Valerio Adami's painting into any rigid category, the Fund works correspond to various themes. There are Mythological narration (Pentesilea, of 1994), Portraits (self-portrait, of 1983 and Vittorio Alfieri's portrait, of 1995) Political Pictures and Literary Pictures, Allegorical Landscapes, A traveller's pictures and, finally, Caprices.

Adami Foundation is an independent non-profit Institution, dedicated to the drawing theory and practice. Together with some friends (Lucien Frydlender, Markus Hasler, Guido Artom, Ralph Nash, Emilio Tadini, Gilberto Gabrielli, Giovanni Rubboli), Adami delineates a cultural identity that fits the current artistic situation, which is increasingly brought into question from various points of view: cultural, economic, structural, organizational.

Everybody knows that, in recent years, the art has been enduring not only an economic crisis but also an identity crisis. Such a crisis jeopardised the modern art foundations and, often, the legitimisation modern works found in the Museum. Nowadays, the art main difficult is the lack of a free and independent thought.

Valerio Adami created a foundation that is not self-celebrating but aimed at offering a place of search and observation to the art.

Adami did not want a museum as a mere place of conservation of artistic works and values but as a place of active research aimed at emphasising the importance of drawing theory and practice. Adami did not consider drawing only a representation of paintings but a fundamental moment of all knowledge projects such as economy, politics and science.

The Foundation aims at creating a free and independent place where promoting drawing and thought through exhibitions, seminaries and drawing-schools. International personalities such as Daniel Arasse, Luciano Berio, Guido Canella, Jaques Dupin, Carlos Fuentes, Saul Steinberg, Emilio Tadini joined the Drawing Institute, as scientific committee.

This exhibition is perfectly integrated in Credito Valtellinese Group Gallery exhibition programs. Credito Valtellinese has been promoting non-profit contemporary art exhibitions for ten years. In Milan, foundations are a particularly live subject, which was recently discussed in a meeting during Max Ernst exhibition.

Valerio Adami was born in Bologna, in 1935. He is one of the most respected Italian painters in the international artistic scenario. He began painting in Venice in 1945 with the painter Felice Carena. In 1951, he met Kokoschka and, in the same year, he studied the art of drawing with Achille Funi at Brera Academy of Fine Arts.

Since 1958, he has been spending long periods in various European countries and has been travelling a lot all over the world. After he had lived for several years in Paris and New York, in 1990, Adami decided to spend his summer holidays on the Maggiore Lake. Adami's paintings were characterised by bright colours, and, above all, by a very incisive sign. Adami's works are the result of possible assemblages whose starting point is memory (journeys, landscapes, experiences, pictures). Such assemblages aim at satisfying the cultural needs and sensibility, at real data sedimentation and interiorization.

Loredana Parmesani is attending to the exhibition.

Brochure published by Skira Editions.

Information at Credito Valtellinese Group Gallery: Phone: 02. 48008015
Press office for Kriterion :
Studio Irma Bianchi Via Arena 16/1-20123 Milan Phone: 02.89404694 - 89400732 Fax 02.8356467
Next events:
September 1997 : opening of Credito Valtellinese Group Gallery's the "Garden of Sculpture"
November 1997 : Kounellis