(born in Bologna in 1935)
Autosuggestione, 1963, acrylic on canvas, signed and dated 246 1963, signed, dated, inscribed and titled on the reverse, framed, 115 x 140 cm

The work is accompanied by a photo certificate signed by the artist and by a photo certificate released by Fondazione Marconi, Milan, on January 2005.

Provenance:
Studio Marconi, Milan
Volterrani Family’s Collection, Italy

Valerio Adami’s oeuvre functions simultaneously on many different levels, it is representative and yet not representative. On some levels the representations are relevant while on others they are not. His paintings are close to reality as far as their source of inspiration is concerned while the viewer is somehow kept distant from this source of inspiration. The realities to which Adami’s work is referred are sometimes hard to decipher. This is one of the main aspects that characterize many of his works.

Adami denies any classical or romantic rules that request form or context in terms of style and subject. The viewer faces the vision of the artist’s mind in which, order and contradictions are contained within the same composition. These contrasting elements outlined by black lines precisely drawn,create a sort of impossible harmony “Autosuggestione”, is a work in which Adami confronts his viewer with a psychological space that allows the subconscious to freely move and play around. In this work, a sport car, the Ferrari 400 Superamerica a model that came out in 1960, is depicted. Adami often painted vehicles like sailing boats, airplanes, taxis, motorcycles, trucks, cars, etc.
The notion of movement is fundamental in his work as movement within his compositions is perceived within space and time. Adami’s work catches the viewer’s curiosity. The viewer is compelled to comprehend how a certain object can possibly appear within this context, who the painting’s main charcter is and what he is doing. His narrative remains suspended undefined. In Adami’s work every composition is rich of unusual situations and objects in which real objects ( like the car in this case) and undefined beings like the man holding this green painting or most probably mirror is doing, the sense of mistery enhanced by this work is characteristic of the paintings he executed in the first half of the Sixties.

Born in Bologna in 1935 and educated in Milan at the Accademia di Brera, Adami in the second half of the Fifties worked mainly in London and Paris. While in Paris he met and was influenced by Roberto Matta and Wifredo Lam. In his first paintings the expressionistic influence emerges while in the second half of the Sixties he develops a style of painting reminiscent of French Colonialism. In the Seventies his work becomes more political and his art incorporated subject matter such as mythology, literature, philosophy, history. In the Eighties retrospetive exhibits of his work were held in Paris, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, Valence. His work is internationally recognized, Valerio Adami spent most of his life in Paris where he still lives. His work is internationally recognised.