- ROBERTO BARNI ARTWORKS

- ROBERTO BARNI PAINTER

Roberto Barni it's a painter It is Tuscan sculptor counted among the exponents of the movement Cultured painting, theorized by the critic Italo Musa in the eighties.

Roberto Barni was born in Pistoia in 1939.
In 1959 he began to paint his first abstract paintings, using wood, iron and newspaper. His first exhibitions date back to 1960, mostly linked to a figuration in the Pop sphere within the denominated School of Pistoia.

In May 1962 he exhibited his Obituary. In Rome he knows Cesare Vivaldi, who invites him to participate in the exhibition Revort I - Objective art documents in Europe, in Palermo in 1965. In this period Roberto Barni is interested in a type of minimalist-conceptual experience which will then be overcome when with a symbolic work, Resurrection of 1972 (10 years after exhibiting his obituary) he returns to history and painting.

From 1966 to 1973 he exhibited at Zoom Studio of Pistoia, from FLORA in Florence, at Selected Artist Galleries of New York, from From the Loo in Munich, from Charles Lienhrd of Basel.
In 1976 he used the term for the first time anachronism, claiming that the artist must have a vision of art that escapes the concept of time: it is not conditioned by it or by contemporary techniques and materials. Some critics like Italo Mussa, Maurizio Calvesi It is Marisa Bishop begin to promote this artistic vision, but Roberto Barni does not want to be associated with a particular movement, preferring personal research.

From 1980 to 1983 Roberto Barni executes the iconographic cycle Paternity. In the same period he paints a series of canvases from the series The Adventures of Domestic Thinking, in which the blindfolded man appears for the first time, a fundamental element of human conflict and a key character in Barni's poetic journey.

In these years, the exhibition activity and the notoriety of the Pistoia artist increased a lot, leading to him being exhibited not only in Italy, but also in the main European cities and in America.
In the early eighties he exhibited at the Festival dei due Mondi in Spoleto, in Florence, in Milan at the Ariete Art Gallery, in Paris and in 1985 in New York at the Queens Museum and at the Shape Gallery. From this moment Barni's contacts with the United States will never cease: the artist in fact participates in major international exhibitions such as A new Romanticism a Washington D.C. e nell'Ohio, Avant-garde in the Eighties at County Museum in Los Angeles. In Europe participates in the Venice Biennial as a sculptor in 1988, and at Monte Carlo Sculpture Biennial. In this period Roberto Barni begins to devote himself more and more to sculpture and creates the works: Silent act, Nursery rhyme, Vacina, Opposing Views.

In 1997 he exhibited at Palazzo Fabbroni and at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, in 1999 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Reims. The collective dates back to 2000 Fermentations with Antonino Bove, Giuseppe Chiari, Omar Galliani and Marco Nereo Rotelli at Ducal Palace of Lucca.

From 1999 to 2000 he made several sculptures, including Continuous for the collection of Daniel Spoerri in Seggiano e The great Vacina for the Pecci Museum in Prato. In 2001 he collaborated with Alessandro Bagnai and Alessandro Poggiali, presenting the works in Florence and Siena. In 2002 he participated in group exhibitions such as Something Happened at the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava, The modernity of melancholy al Palace of Reason in Verona.

Currently Roberto Barni lives and works in Florence, continuing to exhibit in Italy and in the rest of the world.