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Gianfranco Chiavacci
From IT, Tuscany, Pistoia
4
Artworks on
elementum.art
elementum.art
10
Editions on
elementum.art
elementum.art
The innovative Tuscan artist Gianfranco Chiavacci (1936-2011) was born in Pistoia, near Florence, where he lived and worked all his life.
Surrounded by extraordinary artistic circles in Milan and Florence, such as Fiamma Vigo's Galleria Numero, known for its incomparable taste for avant-garde, kinetic, abstract and geometric art, Chiavacci began his career as a painter in the 1950s.
After attending a programming course for the first computers from IBM in 1962, Gianfranco Chiavacci's curiosity for this new form of language was piqued. He began to explore optical and kinetic art, creating two- and three-dimensional paintings with various materials and experimenting with geometric figures and shapes, using the inherent logic of computers without actually using a computer. Chiavacci's fascination with binary language led him to use it in his works, including paintings, photographs, drawings, and sculptures. This urge to decode language led to an obsessive aesthetic in his work, in which he fused elements of the Italian art movements Arte Programmata and Arte Povera to create his own unique style.
In the 1970s, Chiavacci focused on photography as an investigative tool, breaking away from the usual use of the camera to explore, record, and repeat the movement of objects. Chiavacci's study led to his extensive series Photographic Researches, a pure form of abstraction using compositions, photograms, sculptures, colour slides, and light. Through his systematic approach, Gianfranco Chiavacci created an art form in which his system became abstraction itself.
Gianfranco Chiavacci's use of negative and positive space shows the viewer that he was constantly searching for new two-dimensional possibilities.
Chiavacci's work spans more than five decades and is known for developing an innovative aesthetic based on a binary language that challenges conventional two-dimensionality. The Tuscan artist was distinguished by a diverse and extensive body of work in which he experimented with painting, photography, and three-dimensional works.
