Three cheers for Francesco Vezzoli for bringing the colour, theatre and heat of Italy into Nahmad Project’s gallery space in the heart of cold grey autumnal London. Goodbye to the ubiquitous white walls and stone, concrete or timber floors of most art galleries. For three months, works by Vezzoli and Giorgio de Chirico will be set in the urban landscape of an imaginary Italian piazza, with artificial grass on the floor and the walls covered in murals that relate to de Chirico’s own representations of architecture.
On show against Vezzoli’s backdrop, the works by Giorgio de Chricio span from the 1920′s to the 1970′s (Chirico died in 1978 when Vezzoli was only 7 years old). You would not know it though as the exhibition has a coherence and freshness, a testament to both artists and to Vezzoli’s curation of the exhibition which has, at the centre of the piazza, Vezzoli’s sculpture “Minima idea (Muso dell’Antichita)”
Nahmad Projects’ space is a hidden gem in Cork Street, with minimal street frontage. Nahmad has developed a reputation that turns this into an asset, by experimenting and challenging contemporary norms for the display of art and bringing different artists together, as here with Vezzoli and Giorgio de Chricio.