Giorgio Griffa’s most recent exhibition at Galleria Lorcan O’Neill focuses on the connection between his paintings from the 1980s and the present. The exhibition displays work from the 1980s and 1990s alongside those created over the last decade, revealing the continued presence of joyful line and vibrant colour that has marked the last 50 years of Griffa’s paintings, and which diverges from the linear geometry of his early work. 

This new exhibition of Giorgio Griffa at Galleria Lorcan O'Neill spans the full breadth of the artist's practice, bringing together highlights from the artist’s three major bodies of work: his minimal canvases of the 70s; his large gestural works from the 80s; and his lively rhythmic paintings from the last decade inspired by modernist poetry and avant-garde music.  

The title of this group exhibition, a phrase by Paul Valery which is quoted by Italo Calvino in the notes of his Norton Lecture on "lightness," expresses the idea that to fly, to leave the bounds of gravity, to reach higher and to head for the skies is to expend effort, concentration, and volition. The exhibition features work by Martin Creed, Giorgio Griffa, Anselm Keifer, Richard Long, and Luigi Ontani.

“Danza di Neuroni”, Griffa’s first exhibition at Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, was composed entirely of recent work and represented the astonishing burst of creative and intellectual energy which the artist had undergone in the year preceding the exhibition. The works were linked by a series of references to “Il Canone Aureo” (The Golden Mean), the mathematical principle which has been held by many, including Salvador Dalí, as the method through which artistic and architectural perfection can be achieved. 

Griffa’s exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre, London, features a display of works from across the artist’s life and emphasised his belief in the ‘intelligence of painting.’ The artist displays how he allows the essential elements of his process, be it the type of brush or canvas he uses, or the colour dilution of his paint, to influence and form his works. The title of the exhibition, “A Continuous Becoming,” did well to capture his perception of art as an ongoing and organic process, with lines and brushstrokes of the works deliberately cut short to represent a kind of ellipses on the canvas.