Diego Perrone
Senza Titolo
Perrone appropriates ‘high’ and ‘low’ art-historical icons and techniques with a degree of anarchical freedom. And, despite the perennial critical reading of contemporary Italian art as stemming from Arte Povera and Conceptualism, he found his roots elsewhere, in a broad range of historical references, from Umberto Boccioni to Mario Sironi, and with a distinct perspective on Italian identity. Barbara Casavecchia
Donated by the artist and Massimo De Carlo. Aluminium, iron, 2009, 247 x 230 x 220 cm. Photography © Alessandro Zambianchi.
Resume navigation
Born in Asti in 1970, he lives and works in Milan.
Diego Perrone studied at the Brera Academy in Milan with Luciano Fabro, and then in Bologna where he met Alberto Garutti. His artistic production is akin to Neo-Conceptualism and combines the free use of various media – such as sculpture, drawing, glass-working, video and photography – with a multiplicity of poetic intuitions that allow him to give an acute reinterpretation of traditional themes and icons, from popular culture to more recent history. A series of elements and symbols linked to the artist’s rural origins often recur in his highly personal definition of artistic imagination: the koi carp, the amphora, the tractor and the human ear are in fact just some of the thematic nodes that return as recurring elements of visual reflection. This multitude of motifs comes together in the artist’s works, expressed in organic shapes through sculptures that take the form of works in aluminium or molten glass mixed with minerals and oxides, subjected to very high temperatures, while in his drawings, it is the result of the meticulous repetition of ballpoint pen lines running obsessively over the surface of the sheets.