This September, Unbiased twentieth Century in New York will host a landmark presentation of Italian artist Lucia di Luciano (b. 1933), organized by Lovay Nice Arts. At 93 years outdated, di Luciano stays a stressed innovator, her follow stretching throughout six a long time and charting an expansive journey via abstraction’s many legacies.
The sales space brings collectively a uncommon constellation of works spanning from the early Nineteen Sixties to 2024. The set up highlights di Luciano’s enduring dedication to construction and transformation: from the rigor of her programmatic black-and-white geometries to her most up-to-date canvases, bursts of shade, gesture and emotional freedom.
The Beginnings: Arte Programmata and Past
Rising in postwar Italy, di Luciano, collectively together with her late husband Giovanni Pizzo (1934–2022), was central to Arte Programmata, a motion that sought to rethink authorship via guidelines, serial sequences, and collaborative programs. Theirs was an artwork that resisted singular genius, as a substitute embracing course of, collective pondering, and cross-disciplinary trade. Di Luciano’s works from this era stand as testaments to a perception in abstraction as a common language—one able to transcending cultural and geographic divides.
Her contributions prolonged into collaborative experiments with composer Pietro Grossi, an early pioneer of computer-generated music, and participation in Rome’s radical collectives akin to Gruppo 63 and Operativo R. The mental boldness of these years set the stage for a follow that has by no means ceased evolving.
From Programs to Shade
By the Seventies, di Luciano turned to the issue of shade, introducing chromatic depth whereas sustaining the structured foundations of her earlier work. Via the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, she delved deeply into shade concept, balancing precision with an more and more lyrical sensibility. Her work from this era provide bridges between rigorous programs and intuitive experimentation.
The 2000s marked one other shift. Di Luciano started to loosen the geometric framework that had outlined her for many years. Irregular types, natural buildings, and painterly gestures emerged, signaling a decisive transfer towards freedom with out abandoning her curiosity in abstraction’s broader histories.
A Partnership with Lovay Nice Arts
A lot of di Luciano’s renewed visibility in recent times is because of her collaboration with Lovay Nice Arts, the Geneva-based gallery championing her work. After presenting her in a devoted exhibition in 2023, her first main modern showcase in practically three a long time, Lovay now brings her to Unbiased twentieth Century with a centered choice of work spanning six a long time. The gallery’s dedication has been instrumental in reintroducing di Luciano to a world viewers, situating her not solely as a historic determine of Arte Programmata however as a dwelling artist whose latest works resonate with as a lot vitality and innovation as her early experiments. At Unbiased, Lovay’s presentation underscores each continuity and transformation, revealing an artist nonetheless pushing abstraction’s boundaries at 93.
A New Power at 93
Since 2022, di Luciano has entered one more chapter, one outlined by daring chromatic experimentation and a palpable emotional immediacy. The canvases resonate with traces of Op Artwork, shade subject portray, expressionism, and even non-Western pictorial traditions, but they continue to be uniquely her personal, private universes during which drawing, dripping, doodling, and hand-painting converge.
“My work has been a steady transformation,” she has stated. “At this time, at 93, I stand up within the morning and take into consideration how I can specific myself higher at present than yesterday.”
This relentless pursuit of reinvention is what makes her Unbiased presentation so vital. It isn’t merely a retrospective look, however a dwelling continuation of a profession that resists stasis.
Recognition, Belated and Laborious-Gained
Regardless of her early prominence, di Luciano’s modern works had not been publicly proven for practically three a long time till the 2023 exhibition in Geneva. Her re-emergence comes at a second when the artwork world is lastly reckoning with the missed contributions of girls artists. As she herself displays:
“At this time, I can say it wasn’t simple to be a girl and an artist… However the feminine artists of the time have been neither dolls nor idiots, they have been ladies with robust characters. Their expertise was the actual novelty of these years.”
Her work’s inclusion within the 59th Venice Biennale (2022) confirmed her relevance not solely as a historic determine, however as a up to date voice. Now, with Unbiased twentieth Century, New York audiences may have a uncommon alternative to see her legacy unfold throughout time, from early programmatic buildings to current emotional landscapes.
A Residing Legacy
Lucia di Luciano’s work are held in main worldwide collections together with Tate Trendy (London), MAMCO (Geneva), and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (Rome). But her biggest achievement could also be her refusal to settle into one type or period. Her follow is a testomony to abstraction’s capability for reinvention, and to the dedication of an artist who has by no means stopped asking new questions of kind, shade, and expertise.
As Unbiased opens its doorways this September, the presentation of di Luciano’s work is not going to solely honor a pioneering determine of Italian abstraction, but in addition have a good time the fierce vitality of an artist who continues, even in her tenth decade, to rework the language of portray.
Lucia di Luciano’s work could be seen @ Unbiased twentieth Century Truthful in New York, 4-7 September 2025
