Turi Simeti

EXPLORE ONLINE!

Almine Rech is pleased to present the first posthumous presentation of Italian artist Turi Simeti (1929 – 2021), on view in the gallery’s Online Viewing Room from May 7 to 23, 2021.

Turi Simeti is widely recognized as one of the last representatives of the generation of Milanese artists who shook up Italian art during the second half of the 20th century. The selection will reflect signature elements of Turi Simeti’s career, conceived to celebrate the full scope of his artistic legacy.

Turi Simeti’s use of pure, saturated tones such as red or yellow is embodied by this selection of late works, created between 2014 and 2018. His works have a sculptural aspect, utilizing an oval shape made of wood that creates volume on the canvas. This signature technique produces different relief patterns on the surface of his paintings that invite a play of shadows and light across monochrome colors such as yellow, red or black. Employing the recurrent motif of the oval, Turi Simeti set out to develop an irregular writing system that would liberate the surface of the canvas from the principles of materiality, allowing nothing but silence.

Almine Rech organized several exhibitions with the artist throughout his life, including a retrospective titled Le Choix du Signe curated by Natacha Carron in Brussels in 2015. The same year, Almine Rech Editions published a monograph featuring an array of archival images. Turi Simeti’s work was also shown at Almine Rech Shanghai as part of the 2020 exhibition Spring and in Abstraction(s) at the Song Art Museum in Beijing in 2019, curated by Nicolas Trembley.

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For inquiries, please contact: inquiries@alminerech.com

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Turi Simeti (1929-2021).

Born in 1929 in Sicily, Turi Simeti settled in Rome in 1958, where he regularly visited Alberto Burri's workshop. He started painting and made his debut amongst the artists of the Art Informel movement. Simeti moved to Milan in the early 1960s, where he met Fontana, Manzoni, Bonalumi and also Castellani who became one of his closest friend. In this climate of vibrant dialogue, the artist took part in the changes occurring at that time in European art history.

Simeti's first Milanese years led to a considerable number of experiences where the surface of his canvases became a space to be conquered with radical elements, drawn both from minimalism and the notion of the monochrome. Simeti creates in his works different types of tension on several formats, frequently relying on small-scale canvases to produce startling dimensions. Employing the motif of the oval, he has attempted to develop an irregular writing system that liberates the surface of the canvas from the principles of materiality, allowing nothing but silence.

Almine Rech organized several exhibitions with the artist including a retrospective titled 'Le Choix du Signe' curated by Natacha Carron in Brussels in 2015. The same year, Almine Rech Editions published a monograph including archive images.

Read more about the artist here.

Photo: Portrait of Turi Simeti, Milan, 2015 / Photo: Piotr Niepsuj - Courtesy of Almine Rech and Archivio Turi Simeti