Black and White

Reading art history through the lens of colour reveals just how much the colour palette it is never simply a matter of personal taste, but the result of complex reasons composite, emotional, symbolic and even economic. The precious ultramarine blue derived from lapis lazuli or the much-maligned yellow demonstrate how the colour palette is linked to cultural and historical dynamics rooted in The West as in China.

The exhibition on display at the House of the Water Keeper a Vaprio on the Adda offers an in-depth exploration of the two “non-colours” par excellence: the white and the black. Through a stimulating sensory journey based on dialogue, light, shadows and contrasts, the visual experience explores the very nature of the work of art. The white, the sum of the colours of the rainbow and pure light, manifests itself as a perceptual space that erases individuality in order to elevate it to an absolute archetype. The black, long associated with chaos or darkness, reveals its ambivalent nature: a musical pause for Kandinsky, a point of primordial origin and a modern icon in fashion. As the scholar pointed out Michel Pastoureau, the black-and-white duo have managed to shape the collective imagination through the cinema and the photography.

Edited by Simona Bartolena e Armando Fettolini, the exhibition showcases this harmony between opposites through the work of 19 artists. The exhibition begins with historical masters such as Lucio Fontana, Dadamaino e Gianni Secomandi, before going on to explore contemporary sensibilities in Raffaele Bonuono, Ermenegildo Brambilla, Giuseppe Buffoli, Federico Casati, Elisa Cella, Giorgio Celon, Matilde Domestico, Giorgio Donders, Federica Ferzoco, Nadia Galbiati, Giovanni Galli, Rossana La Verde, Roberto Rossatti, Elisabetta Tagliabue, Federica Zianni e Marta Vezzoli.