Cesare Tacchi

CESARE TACCHI Rome, 1940 – Rome, 2014

Cesare Tacchi was born in Rome in 1940. He had his first significant exhibition experience in 1959 at the Appia Antica gallery in Rome, in a group show titled "Mambor, Schifano, Tacchi." After participating in the San Fedele Prize in Milan in 1961, he met Plinio De Martiis, the founder and curator of the La Tartaruga Gallery in Rome, who included him in the group exhibition "13 painters in Rome" in February 1963. In the exhibition catalog, Cesare Vivaldi, one of the most attentive critics of the time, wondered, "Is a sort of 'mass realism' emerging, an art that uses the same means of mass civilization to depict it ruthlessly satirical?" Tacchi's works exhibited at the collective show "Lombardo, Mambor, Tacchi" in the same year at La Tartaruga were inspired by the urban landscape. Cesare Tacchi's first solo exhibition dates back to 1965 when he showcased some object-paintings at La Tartaruga. These works aimed to surpass the limits of the two-dimensional surface of the canvas and animate the fabric on the frame. These were "padded" and protruding canvases with upholstery inserts on which the artist painted black enamel figures: portraits of friends, actors, images taken from advertisements or magazines, armchairs, sofas, and bourgeois interiors. In these works, Tacchi also revisited the art of the past, becoming one of the first, in the postmodern era, to engage with the theme of quotation. The artist was among the leading figures of Roman Pop Art or the so-called Scuola di Piazza del Popolo, along with Tano Festa, Mario Schifano, Franco Angeli, Giosetta Fioroni, Jannis Kounellis, Pino Pascali, Sergio Lombardo, Renato Mambor, and Mario Ceroli. Between 1966 and 1967, Tacchi shifted his research in a different direction, abandoning the dimension of the canvas and investigating objects, often contradicting their function. This led to the creation of his "impossible furniture": sofas, armchairs, chairs, all unusable, like the armchairs exhibited at the collective show "Arte povera e Im-Spazio" curated by Germano Celant at La Bertesca Gallery in Genoa in 1967 and at the Festival dei Mondi in Spoleto in June 1967. With the performance "Cancellazione d'artista" (Artist's Erasure), presented at La Tartaruga in May 1968 as part of the exhibition "Il Teatro delle Mostre" (Theater of Exhibitions), Tacchi chose action as a form of expression. Behind a transparent glass, he gradually "erased" his figure by spreading a veil of paint on the barrier separating him from the audience. Tacchi later developed new actions such as "Cesare Tacchi + Mario Diacono," "Sopra un tavolo" (On a Table), "Sul piedistallo" (On the Pedestal), "Al muro" (On the Wall), and "Il rito" (The Rite), presented at the Incontri Internazionali d'Arte curated by Achille Bonito Oliva in 1972 and at the Libreria Arcana by invitation of Mario Diacono. He held numerous exhibitions, including solo shows at Galleria Mana Art Market in Rome in 1970, Galleria Schema in Florence in 1972, and the group exhibition "Amore mio" at Palazzo Ricci in Montepulciano in 1970. In the group exhibition "Vitalità del negativo nell'arte italiana 1960/70" curated by Achille Bonito Oliva at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome in 1970, Tacchi exhibited a series of objects, expanding their function to an incredible extent. In 1972, at Elisabetta Catalano’s photography studio, Tacchi reversed the process of "Cancellazione d'artista" and slowly revealed his figure by cleaning a glass. Elisabetta Catalano documented the action, and with her sequenced images, Tacchi created the photographic work "Painting." Inspired by the last image in this sequence, he made a series of drawings that led him to reclaim the medium of painting. In his 1975 solo exhibition at La Tartaruga Gallery, Tacchi exhibited two large paintings, "Sentire... Se dipingete chiudete gli occhi e cantate" (Feel... If you paint, close your eyes and sing - Pablo Picasso) and "Le braccia" (The Arms), along with other two-dimensional works on which the audience was invited to intervene. On a large panel of plasticine, traces could be left or erased, while on an elastic black canvas, pressure could be applied to create plastic images. In some subsequent exhibitions, Tacchi experimented with different modes of interaction between the artist, the artwork, and the recipients, such as "La didattica in galleria" (Teaching in the Gallery) at Galleria La Tartaruga in Rome in 1977, "Il triangolo si presenta al foro in quadrato" (The Triangle Presents Itself at the Square Hole) and "Uccel di bosco" (Bird of the Forest), both at Galleria La Salita in Rome in 1979 and 1983, respectively. With the artwork "Della pittura" (About Painting) in 1980, Tacchi embarked on a path dedicated entirely to the values of the surface, exploring its implications to the extreme and courageous consequences of ornamentation and decoration through a rich range of original motifs: words, homophony between sheets and leaves, mathematical-geometric signs, stylized figures. Among others, his solo exhibition titled "Parola" (Word) at Galleria La Nuova Pesa in Rome in 1993 is worth mentioning. In 1995, the Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea of the University of Rome La Sapienza dedicated an exhibition titled "Sécrétaire" to Tacchi, curated by Alessandro Masi. In the 1990s and 2000s, his works were exhibited in a series of solo shows and within some historical exhibitions, including "Roma anni '60" (Rome in the 1960s) curated by Maurizio Calvesi at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome in 1990 and "Anni 70. Arte a Roma" (The 1970s. Art in Rome) curated by Daniela Lancioni at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome in 2013-2014. Cesare Tacchi passed away in Rome on March 14, 2014. – Palazzo delle Esposizioni Official