Ferruccio Gard was born in Vestignè (Turin) 18/12/1941 . He is one of the best-known exponents of new abstract art. He has held 130 personal exhibitions and over 200 collective ones in Museums and Galleries in China, Japan, United States, Australia, Brazil, Panama, Singapore, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Tasmania, Greece, Rumania and Italy. He has been invited to 6 Biennali Internazionali in Venice (1982-1986-1995-2007-2009-2011) and to the 11th Quadriennale Nazionale in Rome (1986). He was invited to participate in the most important exhibition ever held on Italian abstract art: "Astratta: Secessioni Astratte in Italia dal dopoguerra al 1990", organised by Giorgio Cortenova and Filiberto Menna (Verona, Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Palazzo Forti; Milan, Palazzo della Permanente; Darmstadt, Kunsthalle). In 1984 the city of Venice dedicated an anthological exhibition to him in the Wagnerian Museum of Ca’ Vendramin Calergi.
His recent personal exhibitions include a provocative revisiting of a few temples of the Italian Renaissance, with exhibitions in Mantegna’s house in Mantua; in the Palladian Basilica in Vicenza; in Giorgione’s house in Castelfranco Veneto and in the Lombardesque Loggetta in Ravenna. In 1997 he held a personal exhibition in "Tessaloniki, cultural capital of Europa 1997". Also in 1997, in an exhibition organised by the Cultural Affairs Council of Venice, held in the Palazzo delle Prigioni, by St. Mark’s Square, and presented by the Mayor, Massimo Cacciari, he exhibited some new "picto-sculptures" in glass, created in artistic collaboration with Archimede Seguso, considered the greatest master-glassblower of Murano.
Since 1973 he has lived and worked in Venice, with a studio on the Lido, in via Lepanto 1/G. He has been active for thirty years, and after initial periods of surrealism and metaphysics, characterised by geometrical figures, he came in 1978, following a coherent evolution, to programmed art, neo-constructivism and "gestaltic-art", Gestalpsychologie (the latest avant-garde of the century), so-called because connected with the psychology of perception and the theory of form. Within this field he has continued his research into the relations between light, space and form, into chromatism and visual perception. In 1987 this research led him to the abstract art of new geometry and, in the nineties, to informal-abstract painting. His most recent aesthetic endeavour is considered by many critics as one of the most stimulating in Italy today, for his personal chromatic exploration and the original fusion of two fundamental experiences of contemporary art: abstraction and informalism.
Many well-known poets critics and artist have discussed Gard’s works, from Pierre Restany and Achille Bonito Oliva, to Jorge Amado and Andrea Zanzotto, from Giulio Carlo Argan, Giuseppe Marchiori and Marziano Bernardi, to Renato Barilli, Luciano Caramel, Claudio Cerritelli, Alberto Veca, Giovanni Maria Accame, Piero Dorazio, Giorgio Cortenova, Floriano De Santi, Filiberto Menna, Virgilio Guidi, Angelo Dragone, Milena Milani, Tommaso Trini, Toni Toniato, Marisa Vescovo, Riccardo Barletta, Roberto Sanesi, Guido Perocco, Paolo Rizzi, Ermanno Krumm, Enzo Di Martino, Gianfranco Bettettini, Giorgio Segato, Virginia Baradel e Diana De Feo. The Gard’s art was subject of degree thesis in Cà Foscari Venice university.
Ferruccio Gard is present at the Italian Pavilion, Arsenale, of 54. Biennale di Venezia 2011, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi and chosen by Paolo Ruffili. He was originally invited to the Veneto Pavilion at Villa Contarini in Piazzola sul Brenta (PD), but he was moved especially for the "scandal" that happened to Italian Pavillion of Luca Beatrice, Biennale 2009, which was inserted an artist with a painting technique very similar to Gard.
In October 2011, for the seventy years old, two major exhibitions opened. From 06/10 to 28/11 at the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes Genaro Pérez, Cordoba, Argentina. From 03/10 to 31/12 for Europe Art Now at the Galerie Rosemarie Bass, Remagen (Bonn), Germany.
On 2012, the exhibitions at the Galleria Giorgio Ghelfi in Verona from 9 to 20 march and at the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes in Salta (Argentina) from 1/03 to 29/04.
|
