The 'Black and White' exhibition explores the classic and timeless contrast between black and white in visual art, but at the same time offers an opportunity to reflect on the historical moment we are currently living through, where contrasts are particularly marked in a number of fields.
Although less common than black and white photography, black and white painting has also been explored by many artists with the aim of creating striking, minimalist works.
In the works of the Zero Group and the Minimalist movement, black and white were often used symbolically to represent fundamental contrasts, such as light and dark, positive and negative, or order and chaos. These colours were also used to accentuate the forms and textures in the works, emphasising the sculptural or three-dimensional qualities of the pieces, as in the case of Dadamaino.
The use of black and white is often associated with a minimalist and experimental aesthetic, where artists sought to explore new ways of expressing artistic ideas by focusing on the most essential elements of form and colour. By reducing the colour palette to these two extremes, twentieth-century artists were able to create works that were both simple and complex, inviting the viewer to reflect on the deeper meaning behind these aesthetic choices.
The duality of black and white, a manifestation of the contradiction inherent in the human condition, is a notion that has been explored in both art and philosophy throughout the centuries.Good and evil, light and darkness, spirit and matter, existence and nothingness, freedom and responsibility, yin and yang: our entire existence is based on the complementary duality of opposing but interdependent forces, and the times we live in are undoubtedly times of contrasts.
This exhibition is therefore an invitation to aesthetic discovery, but also to reflection.
