Biography

A self-taught and innovative Tuscan artist, Gianfranco Chiavacci (1936-2011) was born in Pistoia, near Florence, where he lived and worked for all his life.  Surrounded by exceptional artistic circles around Milan and Florence such as Fiamma Vigo’s Galleria Numero, notorious for its unmatched flavor for the avant-garde and kinetic, abstract and geometric art, Chiavacci began his career as a painter in the 1950s.

In 1962, after taking a programming course on IBM’s first computers, Chiavacci’s curiosity in this new form of language sparked.  With aspects of optical and kinetic art, he made paintings experimenting with different materials creating one-of-a-kind geometric figures and forms, all the while never using the computer, but the binary logic that is inherent to it.  In this way, Chiavacci became a part of the unique and pioneering Italian art movement, Arte Programmata.  The Arte Programmata  movement, known as Italian Kinetic Art, was an important abstract art movement of the 1960s in Italy after the exhibition of May 1962, presented at the Olivetti showroom in Milan, Arte programmata.  Arte cinetica.  Opere moltiplicate.  Opera aperta,  curated by Bruno Munari and Giorgio Soavi.

In the 1970s, Chiavacci began to use photography as a tool of investigation.  By separating himself from the common use of the camera, he researched, recorded and repeated the movement of objects in space and time.  Using compositions, photograms, three-dimensional sculptures, color slides and most importantly, light, he developed his most extensive series Ricerce Fotografice  (Photographic Researches),  a body of work representing the purest form of abstraction.  Through his systematic mannerisms, Chiavacci created a world where the system prepared by him became the abstract of art itself.

Chiavacci created, over the course of his fifty-yearlong career, an innovative aesthetic based on the binary language that deviates from the conventional rules of two-dimensionality.  With an incredibly diverse and abundant production, the Tuscan artist mastered the art of experimentation in painting, photography and three-dimensional work. 

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

2015    Gianfranco Chiavacci | François Morellet rigorosi, rigolards...

                curated by Alessandro Gallicchio, Artforms and Die Mauer, Prato,

                Italy

2013    Fotografia Totale, curated by Valerio Dehò, Palazzo Fabroni,

                Pistoia, Italy

2012    Gianfranco Chiavacci - Ricerca Fotografica, curated by Angela

                Madesani & Aldo Iori, Milan Image Art Fair 2012, Milan, Italy

2007    Gianfranco Chiavvaci, curated by Aldo Iori, Centro di

                Documentazione sull’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Pistoiese,

                Pistoia, Italy

2003    Gianfranco Chiavacci,  Galleria Vannucci, Pistoia, Italy

1994    Gianfranco Chiavacci. Limiti,  curated by Bruno Corà, Opera

                Associazione Culturale per le Arti Visive, Perugia, Italy

1996    Fernando Melani (e gli amici di Fernando Melani), Galleria

                Vannucci, Pistoia, Italy

                1984 Por la Paz, Mostra Internazionale di Mail Art, Santo Domingo

                University, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

1973    Gianfranco Chiavacci. Binarietà, Ti. Zero Center of Experimental

                Aesthetic Research, Turin, Italy

1967    Gianfranco Chiavacci, Galleria Numero, Florence, Italy

1966    Piccolo Formato, Galleria Numero, Florence, Italy

Paintings

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GF0045, 1966

White background. Black rhombus in center with white grid.

23.5 x 23.5 in.

 

GF0095, 1967

Painting

7.75 x 11.75 in.

GF0358, 1971

Wooden surface covered with canvas. Mixed linear and curvilinear process.
It’s the first work that has an exterior modulated border after a binary curve. 

25.5 x 25.5 in.

GF0379, 1971

Painting

19.6 x 25.5 in.

GF0416, 1973

Painting

21.25 x 21.25 in.

GF0462, 1979

Painting

11.75 x 19.6 in. 

GF0498, 1981

Painting

11.75 x 11.75 in. 

GF0499, 1981

Painting

11.75 x 11.75 in.

 

GF0500, 1981

Painting

11.75 x 11.75 in.

GF0803, 1990

Painting

40.1 x 44 in. 

 

GF0972, 1995

Wall structure, framed with black fabric
Four condensation types. Four countervailing topologies.

28.25 x 24.75 in.

GF1709, 2000

Painting

27.5 x 19.6 in. 

GF0573, 1984

Painting 

35.5 x 35.5 in.

GF1712, 2000

Painting

27.5 x 19.6 in.

GF1771, 2003

Painting on Canvas. Acrylic colors on red vinyl background. Exchange in two chromatic adjacent bands.

23.5 x 23.5 in.

GF1798, 2003

Painting on Canvas.Cork, wood. Vinyl and acrylics colors, blue line

23.5 x 23.5 in.

GF1799, 2003

Painting on Canvas. Twine, cork, wood. Vinyl and acrylic colors, red and yellow line.

23.5 x 23.5 in.

GF1863, 2005

Painting

23.5 x 23.5 in. 

GF0324, 1969

Painting

32 x 35.5 in.

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