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Tzedakah per Venezia

Suzanne Perlman

Andrea Tardini Gallery, Venice

30th June - 16th August

Press release

Suzanne Perlman

Andrea Tardini Gallery, Venice

30th June - 16th August

This event is part of an international fundraising project aimed at restoring a part of the Jewish Museum

The Andrea Tardini Gallery is pleased to present the first solo show in Italy by Hungarian artist Suzanne Perlman, who will be welcomed in the gallery’s new space in Salizada San Samuele. 

The title chosen explains the exhibition’s intent and its ultimate aim: Tzedakah or Zedaqah, a Hebrew word whose literal meaning is justice or righteousness, it indicates the obligation to do what is right and just, two fundamental elements of spiritual life. Tzedakah thus represents a gift, given by Venice to an artist who has grasped the city’s inner beauty; a gift that Suzanne Perlman returns on this occasion, bringing her works back to the city that took her in and putting them at the centre of a fundraising project, conceived as a true act of rendering offered to one of the city’s symbolic locations: the Venetian Ghetto. The show is in fact part of an international project aimed at restringe three synagogues, that will reacquire their antique artistic splendour.

 

To reinforce this connection, the exhibiton space at the first floor of the Jewish Museum hosts a selection of etchings by Suzanne Perlman, a significant part of her production dedicated to the Jewish spirituality, but also to the nature and city life. This venue is an anticipation of the exhibition settled in the art gallery in Salizada San Samuele, which is organized into three sections, dedicated to body and dance, family and spirituality, myth and nature.

 

Born in Budapest in 1923 in a family of antique dealers and collectors, Suzanne spent her childhood surrounded by art and artists. After her marriage, she moved with her Dutch husband to the Netherlands, but their stay quickly came to an end with the outbreak of the Second World War. What followed was an adventurous escape from Europe through Rotterdam and Paris towards the Caribbean island Curaçao, off the coast of Venezuela, to escape from the Holocaust; this is where they made their home, on an island full of warmth and light, for over twenty years. The Antilles’s atmosphere left a lasting mark on Perlman’s vision; whitout ever forgetting the expressionist lecture by the master Oskar Kokoschka, with whom he worked side by side in Salzburg, hes palette is filled with warm, dense, vibrant Caribbean colors that are reflected in everyday life scenes in Curaçao, in the representation of its lush nature, but also in the genere related to Jewish tradition, in her vision of London, where she currently lives, and Venice, a city she has loved and painted on several occasions, to which this exhibition intends to pay homage. In hes works, which are already part of prestigious collections such as the Ben Uri Gallery, The Ruth Borchard Collection and the Parliamentary Art Collection, the expressionist vigor, fast touch and joyful relationship with color are combine with a rare sensibility, along with a significant mastery of the expressive medium.

 

«For her» - writes the Art critic Francesco Poli - «painting has always been first and foremost an uninterrupted and engaging exercise in a free visual – and even visionary – recreation of spaces, of the urban and natural contexts in which she has lived and travelled through in her voyages, always giving priority to their human side, both individual and collective» «This is why her oil paintings - continues Poli - rich in chromatic mixtures (but also her more transparent waterc- olours), are never based on drawing or structure but are born directly, with a felicitous and ener- getic immediacy, on the canvas or on the paper, and with a tenacious will to identify with the essence of things»

 

With this exhibition painting becomes once again a leading force in the gallery, which has recently found a new home in Salizada San Samuele, a few steps away from Palazzo Grassi; an “island of art" in the heart of Venice, which already offers to the public a considerable number of art galleries and design or high-quality artisan shops. This choice perfectly reflects the gallery’s identity, given that it has taken technical value, an enquiry into processuality and “artisanship” in the work of art as the main elements to be elaborated.

 

The Andrea Tardini Gallery is thus following up on its intention to rediscover and reassess this artistic language, opening its doors once again to an international artist whose life and long career is closely tied to the city of Venice.

Press

Andrea Tardini gallery

Live Exhibition

June 2017

Arte.it (In Italian)

Suzanne Perlman - Tzedakah per Venezia

July 2017

Artribune (In Italian)

Suzanne Perlman - Tzedakah per Venezia

July 2017

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