SOFACQ Gallery
Italy
Chia Sandro
1946 - Florence
Sandro Chia (born 20 April 1946) is an Italian painter and sculptor.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was, with Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria and Mimmo Paladino, a principal member of the Italian Neo-Expressionist movement which was baptised 'Transavanguardia' by Achille Bonito Oliva.
Chia was born in Florence, in Tuscany in central Italy, on 20 April 1946. He studied at the Istituto d'Arte di Firenze from 1962 to 1967, and then, until 1969, at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze. He then travelled in Europe, Turkey and India. He settled in Rome in 1970, and began to show work in the following year. He spent the winter of 1980–1981 in Mönchengladbach, in Nordrhein-Westfalen in West Germany, on a study grant.
Later that year he moved to New York in the United States, where he lived for more than twenty years. In 1984–1985 he taught at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. Chia's early work tended towards Conceptualism, but from the mid-1970s he began to turn towards more a figurative approach.
In June 1979 Paul Maenz [de] showed work by Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria and Mimmo Paladino at his gallery in Cologne, in Germany. In an article in Flash Art in the same year, the critic Achille Bonito Oliva characterised the group as a new art movement, which he called "Transavanguardia".
Chia Sandro, The Wayfarer with his Cane, 2017.
Oil on canvas, 162 x 130 cm.
Chia Sandro, The Wayfarer with Ducks, 2017.
Oil on canvas, 153 x W 122 cm.
Drocco
The subject of several, free and often ambiguous interpretations, Cactus is the icon of Italian design that has revolutionized the domestic landscape, by subverting the borders between indoor area and open space. Cactus comes as an ironic totem, and embodies the grit, the imagination and the humour of the design of the Seventies. Likely to draw upon itself everybody’s attention, this hall-tree redeems itself from functionalism at all costs, because it can perform its function, but also be used as a merry decorative element. You have freedom of interpretation. Cactus comes to life in 1972 thanks to the genius of Guido Drocco and Franco Mello, and from the start it questions the static and rigid world of interior design.
Drocco, Cactus, 1972.
70 x 70 x 170 cm.
Favelli Favio
1967 - Bologna
Flavio Favelli (1967) lives and works in Savigno (Bologna). Favelli's artistic research refers to everyday life and his personal experience, the artist creates performance-actions in which he creates a physical and mental space that changes the perception of the spectators.
Architectural elements and furnishings are transformed into visionary elements that allow the emergence of latent emotions, thus revealing the poetry present in everyday reality. After graduating in Eastern History at the University of Bologna, he took part in the Link Project (1995-2001). He designed and built two bar installations operating at the MAMBO in Bologna and at the MARCA in Catanzaro and two public and permanent environments: the Vestibule of Palazzetto Foscari, headquarters of ANAS in Venice and the Waiting Room in the Pantheon inside the Monumental Cemetery of the Certosa di Bologna, which welcomes the celebration of lay funerals.
In 2009 he was the artist chosen for Acrobazie # 5 Unicredit project at the Fatebenefratelli Center in San Colombano al Lambro (Mi) and the following year he resided at the American Academy in Rome for the Italian Fellowship. He has exhibited in public and private spaces in Italy and abroad. Among the main personal projects: Centro Arti Visive la Pescheria, Pesaro (2010), Marino Marini Museum in Florence (2009), Maison Rouge Foundation, Paris (2007), Sandretto Re Rabaudengo Foundation, Turin (2007), Projectspace176, London (2005 ), Pecci Museum, Prato (2005), IIC, Los Angeles (2004), Artinprogress, Berlin (2002). Collective exhibitions include: 11th Havana Biennial in Cuba (2012), The story that I have not lived at the Castello del Rivoli Museum (2012), IBID Project in London (2011), Special Projects at MACRO, Rome (2011 ), Under which sky? Rice Museum, Palermo (2011), Spazio, MAXXI Museum, Rome (2010), Italics, Palazzo Grassi, Venice and at the MCA, Chicago (2008); XV Quadrennial of Rome (2008), Elgiz Museum, Istanbul (2008) and Clandestini, 50th Venice Biennale (2003).
Favelli Flavio, Via Verdi , 2017.
Assembly of found piano and wall tiling
H 113 x W 113 x D 114 cm
Favelli Flavio - Gold Extra
(one work together with 'Grande Oriente Gold')
2016 - Scratched mirrors, frames - 124 x 142 cm
Favelli Flavio - Grande Oriente Gold
(one work together with 'Gold Extra')
2012 - Crystal chandelier - 85 x 93 cm