It’s Day 225 and I’ve been wanting to paint a colorful piece today.  I’m also kind of pooped because of various activities…including a nice doggie hike in the heat today!  Join me in celebrating Mimmo Paladino today!

Mimmo Paladino (born 18 December 1948) is an Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker.

Mimmo Paladino was born Domenico Paladino in Paduli, Campania, southern Italy. He attended the Liceo Artistico of Benevento (Benevento Art High School) from 1964 to 1968, when minimalism and conceptualism dominated the international art scene. He played a leading part in the international revival of painting towards the end of the 1970s.

His first work, in line with the prevailing conceptual climate at

the time, showed an interest in photography, but in 1977 he had already moved on to the creation of two major tempera murals, one at the Toselli gallery in Milan and one at the Lucio Amelio gallery in Naples.

In 1980, he exhibited his work at the Venice Biennale, in the “Aperto 80” exhibition. Other Italian artists present included Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and Nicola de Maria: the leaders of the Transavantgarde movement. However, it was largely thanks to a picture exhibition held in a range of Central European museums, from the Kunsthalle in Basel, to the Museum Folkwang in Essen and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, that Paladino finally consolidated his international fame. Meanwhile, two personal exhibitions were held simultaneously in New York that year, by Annina Nosei and Marian Goodman, extending his fame to the United States.

In 1981, the Kunstmuseum in Basel organised a major

personal exhibition of paintings, curated by Dieter Koepplin. This was then also put on at the Kestner-Gesellschaft inHanover, the Mannheimer Kunstverein in Mannheim and the Groninger Museum in Groningen. The Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Bologna also dedicated a personal exhibition to him that year.

In 2001, the general catalogue of his graphic work was published (Opera Grafica 1974-2001), curated by Enzo di Martino, for Art of this Century, New York – Paris. The Centro d’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, granted him the most comprehensive retrospective exhibition ever organised by an Italian museum, curated by Bruno Corà (2002).

In 2003, together with Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, and Nicola de Maria, he put on “Transavanguardia 1979-1985” at the Castello di Rivoli Museo di Arte Contemporanea, curated by Ida Gianelli. He also put on personal exhibitions at the Reggia di Caserta, and in Galleria Scognamiglio in Naples and Galleria Valentina Bonomo, Rome (2004). He presented a travelling exhibition on Pinocchio at modern art museums across eight Japanese cities, in Venice’s 17th-century Scola dei Battioro and then at the Museo Civico di Udine, the Museo di Palazzo Pio a Carpi and in Rotterdam (2004–2006).

In 2004, he created the doors for the Padre Pio church in San Giovanni Rotondo, designed by Renzo Piano. In 2005 he exhibited at the Museum der Moderne Rupertinum in Salzburg, and the Loggetta Lombardesca in Ravenna put on “Paladino in Scena”, a major exhibition of his theatre work, curated by Claudio Spadoni. In June that year, he put on an exhibition of major sculptures at the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna Ca’ Pesaro in Venice, curated by Enzo di Martino, for the Biennale.

At the end of 2005, he put on a major exhibition dedicated to Cervantes’ Don Quixote, featuring

paintings, sculptures, drawings and a film, at the Museo Capodimonte in Naples. As requested by Marco Müller, the film was presented at the 2006 Venice Film Festival, with great success. That year, he also created the doors for the San Giovanni Battista church in Lecce (designed by Franco Purini), concluded the intervention in piazza dei Conti Guidi, in Vinci, and exhibited at the Cardi and Christian Stein Gallery in Milan, and the Waddington Gallery in London.

In 2007, he produced two theatre set designs for OEdipus Rex and Cavalleria rusticana, for the Teatro Regio in Turin, and put on a personal exhibition at the Galleria Civica in Modena. In 2008 he presented a major installation at the Museo dell’Ara Pacis in Rome, set to music by Brian Eno. That year, the University of Lugano granted him an honoris causa degree in Architecture. In June 2008, “Porta di Lampedusa – Porta d’Europa”, an important monument in memory of migrants deceased at sea, was inaugurated.

In 2009, a group of his sculptures was shown “en plein air” in Orta San Giulio, Lake of Orta, in a show curated by Flavio Arensi; among the various works it was a horse floating to the shore in front of Villa Bossi, the Town Hall. On 10 April the same year he installed a big blue horse over four metres high (13 feet) at the Amphitheatre of Vittoriale degli Italiani di Gardone Riviera (BS), house-museum of the novelist Gabriele D’Annunzio.

He is interested in the relationship between visual art and sound and has worked with the sound

artist Brian Eno on the installation I Dormienti for the Roundhouse, London in 1999 and on a piece for the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome in 2008. Paladino’s works have been featured in Piran Coastal Galleries.

Paladino currently lives and works in Rome, Paduli and Mattinata.

Partial biography is from wikipedia.

I had a great time painting today’s piece.  I hope you enjoy it!  I will see you tomorrow on Day 226!

Best, Linda