PRACTICE
Valerio Abate's work revolves around the practice of writing, ranging from painting to installation, investigating themes such as time, death, the threshold and the sacred in an ethical and poetic perspective.
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Switzerland to Italian parents in 1994, he studied visual arts at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan and at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. Since 2016, he has been exhibiting between Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Since 2019 he has been writing for the Culture Channel of RSI (Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana) and since 2020 for the Italian magazine Antinomie.it. In 2021, he was selected for the Swiss Italian-language drama training Luminanza.
MAIN INFLUENCES
Laozi, Giordano Bruno, Shitao, Johann W. von Goethe, Novalis, Caspar D. Friedrich, Max Stirner, Arnold Böcklin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Klee, Franz Kafka, Giorgio Morandi, Ernst Jünger, Giorgio Manganelli, Cristina Campo, Richard Serra, Roberto Calasso, Federico Ferrari.
Many of his influences are anonymous or relate to individual works: think, for example, of a dolmen, a stone or wooden temple, East or West. A film by Denis Villeneuve or Murnau. A mountain, a tomb, a cemetery, a forest, the night and caves. Columns devoutly written in oncial Greek by a Christian monk, a haiku painted by a Buddhist calligrapher. A hymn by Beethoven, Michelangelo's Tondo. Hiroshige's formal analogies. The grapheme O, a hexagram from the I Ching. A gothic room. A library, the dust on the shelf. The shadow of Petra's gates. The colour of wooded hills in May near the Alps. The hieroglyphic tradition, a European or Japanese coat of arms. The bowl, an LED street lamp. A poem by Ungaretti or Leopardi, a branch in the snow, the black stone of buildings that have seen war. A leaf, an unnamed fairy tale.
EXHIBITIONS
2022 Lugano (CH) Genesi, Kromya Art Galley (curated by Tecla Riva)
2022 Chiasso (CH) Prize Le stanze dell'arte, Spazio Officina m.a.x Museo (curated by Ossanna Cavadini)
2021 Brescia (IT) Finalist Nocivelli Prize, Chiesa della Disciplina (curated by Daniele Astrologo Abadal and Raffaele Gavarro)
2021 Chiasso (CH) FUORI Le stanze dell'arte (curated by Matilde Tettamanti)
2020 Chiasso (CH) Le stanze dell'arte, Spazio Officina m.a.x Museo (curated by Antonio d'Avossa and Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini)
2020 Berlin (DE) Urban Deluxe, Bark Gallery (curated by Heike Gallmeier)
2019 Chiasso (CH) Prize: Sinestesia nel mondo dell'arte, Spazio Officina m.a.x. Museo (curated by Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini)
2019 Milan (IT) Winner BreraBicocca Prize, Università Bicocca (curated by Marco Casentini and Dany Vescovi)
2018 Milan (IT) Buchi di Polo, Museo Botanico Aurelia Josz (curated by Maurizio Arcangeli and Clara Bonfiglio)
2017 Milan (IT) Cosa non fare negli spazi verdi, Museo Botanico Aurelia Josz (curated by Maurizio Arcangeli and Clara Bonfiglio)
2017 Pavia (IT) Osservatorio 9, Palazzo Mandelli, Arena Po
2017 Milan (IT) Mondi immaginari, Galleria Molino (curated by Kevin Bellò)
2016 Varese (IT) PrizeGhiggini Arte: XV edizione, Galleria Ghiggini (curated by Giuseppe Bonini)
2016 Chiasso (CH) Prize: La memoria nell'arte, Spazio Officina m.a.x. Museo (curated by Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini)
RESIDENCIES
2022 CimaCittà, Blenio Valley (CH)
2021 CimaCittà, Blenio Valley (CH)
SAMMLUNGEN
m.a.x. Museo of Chiasso (CH)