From May 11 until June 16, Credito Valtellinese Gallery stands inside Sertoli Palace and the Valtellina's History and Arts Museum inside Sassi Palace are hosting a great Pierre Casč exhibition entitled "Atmosfere Arcaiche", Antique Atmospheres. On the occasion, the artist from the Ticino is presenting works - including a few big-sized exhibits - that he has realised since 1993. Casč draw inspiration from Burri and Tapies' informal style, adding also quite unusual materials to the traditional colours, marbles and clays that were commonly used. A heartbreaking inner analysis, which he painted on the canvas or on metal panels to represent an unsolved image of time. He used to paint the antique walls of the villages. The plaster is made of powders, ferrous pigments, ashes, tars and sands and reminds of relics and wounds creating some suspense. In this way, he evokes the passing of time, which pervades us and renews us. The majors works, some of which are even 2x4 meter big, are painted in the fading tones of the rust, circumscribed by an aureole with a stele playing the role of fragments and representing history projection. Still, there are more fragments, more memoranda, and more travel icons adorning the walls like little tiles. The exhibition also includes the "Teste arcaiche"; panels made of plumb, sand and tar reminding of the shape of the artist's cerebral hemispheres. So Pierre Casč tells us about himself and about the exhibition with great pictorial sensitivity.

Pierre Casč was born in Locarno (Switzerland) in 1944. He lives and works in Maggia, Ticino Canton. Since 1964, when he first exhibited his works at the Gallery "Il Cenobio" in Milan, he has regularly mounted art exhibitions both in his native country and abroad. Since 1967, he has been an active member of the SPSAS (Societą Pittori, Scultori e Architetti Svizzeri - Association of painters, sculptors and architects of Switzerland), of which he has been the Chairman from 1987 to 1993. In 1990, he became Art Director of the "Casa Rusca" Art Gallery in Locarno, entrusted with the mounting of important exhibitions devoted to the European contemporary art, with particular regard to Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Spain. He was also entrusted with the supervision of the Art Collections belonging to the city of Locarno. Since 1991 he has been a member of the Foundation Marguerite Arp, since 1994 of the Foundation Gottfried Keller and, since 1997, he has become a member of the Foundation Giovanni Segantini Executive Board. In January 1999 he had to resign as a member of all the above-mentioned associations because of his bad health. Since then, he has been free to devote himself to painting. Along with a great number of individual exhibitions, including a recent exhibition that was hosted at Saint Petersburg Museum in 1998, he has also taken part in important group exhibitions, such as the Olten Biennial (1985) and "Libero Blu", which was hosted at Milan Blue Gallery in 1997.