PAOLO MASI - UNTITLED

Born in Florence in 1933, where he lives and works. After having developed a complex and diversified activity in the 1950s and 1960s, he approached the contextual analytical-reductive experiences, breaking down and reorganising aluminium rods, mirrors, wires or small slats of coloured plexiglass on the floor and against the walls, which also extended the rhythm of the "colour-space" into the third dimension. The subsequent phase coincided with the return to two-dimensionality through the project “External surveys - internal confirmations” (1974-76), an elaboration that he developed both outside and inside his studio with the “Tessiture” (sewn raw canvas) and the “Cartoni” (packaging cartons), where he used transparent and covering adhesives for the first time, allowing the internal structure of the material to emerge. He participated in the Venice Biennale (1978); the XI Rome Quadriennale (1986); at the exhibitions “Kunstlerbücher” in Frankfurt and “Erweiterte Fotographie Wiener Secession” in Vienna (1980); at the Parisian exhibition on the artist's book (Centre Georges Pompidou, 1985), at “Arte in Toscana 1945-2000” (Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Palazzo Fabroni, Pistoia, 2002) and at the exhibition “Pittura Analitica. I percorsi italiani 1970-1980” (Museo della Permanente, Milan, 2007). The subsequent works are the “Contenitori di forma colore”, the “Serialità” and again the “Cartoni” (surfaces of various types: wood, canvas, paper), on which the artist intervenes with a complex pictorial operation. The plexiglass series “Trasparenze”, begun in 2000, painted using the spray paint technique, allows the artist to operate a new definition of space through "kinetic-chromatic stimulations" of light and shadow.