Il cappotto? Me lʼhanno inchiostrato

More and more artists have been approaching printmaking lately. Many artists, based in Friuli Venezia Giulia or active elsewhere, have found a strong reference point in the Albicocco art printing house in Udine. Its owners, Gianluca and Corrado, have some sort of maieutic ability of being able to understand the artists’ needs and goals, going beyond themselves. Some painters have developed a deep expertise in printing over the years, while others have approached it recently, getting to feel printing as if it was a tailored suit, sometimes pushing the limits of its possibilities towards unexpected results. Lately, Paolo Iacchetti has approached calcography. The thick arabesque-like tangles appearing on his canvases seem to have neither beginning nor end and are obtained by turning the same mold all over the sheet. The result is a gradation of lights and shadows across imperceptible planes of depth, through shades of ochre, magenta, light blue—almost pop-like or reminiscent of some sort of eighteenth-century ornate treasure, as bright as iridescent skies. The meeting of these artists and printers creates the opportunity for an investigation of the meaning that graphic design has today. Beware: we strongly recommend not leaving any personal effects on the seats at the teatro Arrigoni. Someone is said to have found their coat all scattered with ink, smudged in epoxy resin and sprinkled with silica powder.

Corrado Albicocco was born in 1947 in Urbino, where he studied at Scuola del libro. After working for some years on artistic graphic design, in 1974 he founded the art printing house ACS in Udine with Federico Santini, collaborating with Emilio Vedova, Giuseppe Santomaso and Giuseppe Zigaina. In 1994 he opened the stampa d’arte Albicocco, the printing house he today directs with his son Gianluca and which has become a point of reference for Italian and international contemporary art.

Paolo Iacchetti was born in Milan in 1953, where he still lives and works. After obtaining a degree in chemistry, he studied at the Accademia di Brera, immediately directing his artistic practice towards abstract painting. Iacchetti’s focus is on the relationship between space and color: visual patterns invite the viewer into a dynamic perceptive experience, where the relationships between shapes and tones continually renew within the viewer’s gaze.