Gallery MAG, Gallery Tomo and Italian Culture Institute of Osaka present Endless Landscapes
 (the landscape in Antonio Pedretti’s tradition)

Gallery MAG, Gallery Tomo and Italian Culture Institute of Osaka present Endless Landscapes 
(The landscape in Antonio Pedretti’s tradition). Master Antonio Pedretti’s International project based in Italy and Japan. Curated by Salvatore Marsiglione, Tomoharu Aoyama and Stefano Fossati.
With the Patronage and support of the Italian Culture Institute of Osaka. With the Patronage of Consulate General of Italy in Osaka. 
With the Patronage of Kyoto City
. With the Patronage of the Foundation Italy Japan. With the Patronage of the Association Luigi Russolo
.

MAG continues its project to connect, through a cultural bridge, the towns of Como, Kyoto and Osaka; this time involving one of the most important landscapist artist of the contemporary art: Master Antonio Pedretti.
In agreement with Mr Stefano Fossati, Director of the Italian Culture Institute of Osaka, and Mr Tomoharu Aoyama Tomo Gallery’s Manager, our historical partner, we decided to involve in our new project the Master Antonio Pedretti because his work, better than others, combines the traditional Italian painting and the Japanese one.
Natural elements have a great importance in the traditional Nipponese painting, it explores nature in its constant metamorphosis during the four seasons, a peculiarity also of Pedretti’s art; in his paintings he always analyzes the atmospheric changes’ evolving: the winters of his “Bianchi Lombardi”, the summers of “Varigotti Live” and the autumnal and springy perspectives of his series “Paludosi”, “Luoghi di Narciso” or “Margini del Lago”.
In his personal style Master Pedretti has been exploring countless times the origin of his own places, like a young Samurai, he defends, but above all he feels a deep respect towards his roots and his culture, the Lombard one, which for centuries has been studying, through art, the natural world.
The theme of the universe is put in contact with the concept of regeneration, a permanent feature in nature. In some of his glimpses you perceive the new born twigs’ energy or the decomposition of the shrubs already disappeared in the marsh. In Japanese painting delicate and fluid brush strokes design the subjects in ink or watercolors creating a smooth surface that seems printed; in Pedretti’s one instead you find his gesture’s expressive power, the scratch of the spatula and the thick material which vibrates in few colors getting them unique and impossible to be repeated.
Japanese people traditionally like to enjoy the various aspects of the different seasons and also in Pedretti’s artworks every moment is deeply delved and expressed in many ways, as if they were frames of an old film.
 The lucky series “Bianchi Lombardi” is a good example of all this, here the artist represents the storm, the snowfall or simply the snow-clad and sunny landscape. Each winter moment is explored, from the first colds with rarefied and misty atmospheres, till late winter moments when lands reappear from the melt snows. We can say, in general, that nature is by convention in the whole East, more than in the West, pure and spiritual, connected to the internal religion and to the transcendent, particularly in Japan where the Zen became an only thing with local people’s nature till pervading every aspect.
More than these cultural reasons there are some philosophical- aesthetic ones as well, like the landscape painting which helps who watch it to forget the himself to enter in a cosmic flowing where the our own dissolves itself.
According to the scholar Joseph D. Parker there are two typically Zen sensations which increase the meaning of this art subject: illusion and joy.
Pedretti’s artworks are an evident example of this since they touch some parts of our subconscious that gives us memories’ joy and the illusion to have already seen and known those places, familiar to us even if they are not, even if they do not exist.
According to the Japanese tradition it is not necessary representing the reproduction of the reality, but its pulsation, live landscapes do not exist neither precise memories of them, eventually landscapes made by more elements from more different memories can born.
Pedretti’s paintings meet also this, they do not represent a precise place, but a collection of memories just related to the places. When we admire a snow-clad field with some mountains against the backdrop, we have his realm, the one made by memories and meditative imagination.
The artworks exhibited in the three locations, hark back to these philosophical concepts and highlight the bond between Pedretti’s landscapes painting and the traditional Japanese, but without overtaking the boundaries.
The most prevalent difference is certainly the technical one, where we spot a surface result of the typically Italian and Mediterranean nature of the artist. But when the spectator will be able to go beyond the superficial hindrance and to deeply penetrate, he will find the in common essence between joy and illusion.
A further twine between the Oriental and the Occidental culture in this cycle of exhibitions is stressed by the theme of the deposition.
Throughout the East the subject of the deposition is very felt and is taken on by a specific ceremony: Nokanshi’s care.
It is an extremely rigorous Japanese tradition, a precious way to give the last greeting to the deceased ones.
This ritual involves the cleansing of the body, the make up and the attiring which become the last symbolic caresses to the beloved person before letting him or her go away forever.
The theme of the deposition challenged by the Master Pedretti , becomes instead an in-depth analysis of the regeneration one, already faced in his work.
The artist decides to represent this elaborate topic through a crosscut tree’s trunk that fills the three meters long canvas. This deceased is presented to us in all its loneliness, like an imposing darkness from which light’s touches emerge as if to show an afterlife future.
Pedretti’s deposition becomes so a disquieting event, even though natural, which upsets and shakes the soul, inciting it to deeper reflections, not leaving it emotionless at all.
The Italian setup sees a series of artworks on canvas made during the last year by Master Pedretti, where his sign, his scratch have become more preponderant and significant ; in addition to some paintings conceived and created for the Japanese exhibits, all on modular cardboard of 35x50 cm, some of them compose large and others macro views of Mother Nature.
Salvatore Marsiglione

Openings:
Como on Friday October 16th at 6.00pm Kyoto on Thursday October 22nd at 5.00pm Osaka on Saturday 24th at 5.00pm
on exhibit from October 16th to November 8th 2015
Opening hours: Como from Tuesday to Saturday 10.00am 7.30pm
info Como: +39 3287521463 info@marsiglioneartsgallery.com info Kyoto: +81 075 5854160 info@gallery-tomo.com
info Osaka :+81 06 62278556 stefano.fossati@esteri.it
Locations:
 MAG Como: Via Vitani, 31 Como Italy
 Gallery Tomo: 1F Aoyama BLD 633 Shimogoryomaecho Nakagyo-ku Kyoto 6040995 Japan 
Istituto Italiano di Cultura: Nakanoshima 2-3-18 mira-ku Festival Tower 17F Osaka 5300005 Japan
www.magcomo.it www.gallery-tomo.com www.iicosaka.esteri.it