A form emerges that questions me
Sixteenth exhibition of the series "OMG – grandArte 2025-2026 – The Boundaries of the Sacred"
Inauguration Saturday 9 May 2026 at 5:00 pm
From May 9th to June 7th 2026
The Peano Foundation is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Guido Navaretti (Turin, 1952), titled "Emerge forma che mi interroga," curated by Ivana Mulatero. The exhibition offers a thorough and rigorous retrospective documenting over forty years of the artist's work, from his first ink experiments in 1982 to his most recent methacrylate etchings dated 2026.
The ethics of the burin and the "slow plowshare." Having trained at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts under the guidance of masters Mario Calandri and Francesco Franco, Navaretti developed an independent language centered on the use of the burin. For the artist, this instrument is not a simple tool, but a "slow plowshare" capable of instilling ethics and concentration, openly challenging the speed and superficiality of contemporary society. The act of engraving thus becomes a recording of lived time, where the matrix acts as a seismograph of existence, accumulating weeks of reflection in every millimeter of excavation.
The “Change of Hemisphere”: From Metal to Plexiglas. A focal point of the exhibition is the story of the so-called “change of hemisphere” that occurred in 1999: the transition from traditional chalcography to high-quality printing (xylography) on Plexiglas matrices (methacrylate printing). In this “new world,” Navaretti confronts the absolute dominion of black, a dull surface that must be shattered to extract light. The engraved sign is transformed into a “spared sign”: a ray of white light that emerges from the typographic darkness, taming the alien nature of the dark surface through an infinite network of micro-incisions.
The genesis of the work: a form that questions. The title of the solo exhibition underscores Navaretti's unique poetics, which he doesn't work from predefined sketches but rather through "successive attributions." The image is conquered day after day; the artist waits for a form with greater power to emerge from the infinite possibilities, capable of questioning him and finding the thread of an imaginative thought. The title of the work emerges only at the end of the process, like a summary of a lived experience that gives meaning to abandoning the matrix to begin again elsewhere.
A journey of artistic resistance. The approximately sixty works on display invite the viewer to an exercise in "visual listening." From the 2001 works on zinc to the vast methacrylate scenarios, Navaretti's style takes the form of a "softly recited prayer," a corporeal notation that rejects illusionistic or photographic rendering to rediscover the honesty of engraving tradition.
Guido Navaretti, whose prints are held in prestigious international institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the China Printmaking Museum in Guanlan, confirms with this exhibition his prominent position in the panorama of contemporary graphic art.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with an introduction by Ezio Ingaramo, critical essays by Nicola Micieli, Ivana Mulatero, and Gianfranco Schialvino, and notes and considerations by Guido Navaretti.
The exhibition is part of the "OMG – grandArte 2025-2026 – The Boundaries of the Sacred" series and is sponsored by the Incisori Contemporanei association.
Guido Navaretti's exhibition "Emerge forma che mi interroga" will remain open until June 7, 2026, with the following hours: Thursday to Sunday, 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM.
Free entry.
