Collection: Opiemme

Opiemme's practice investigates the boundaries between words and images, looking for new ways of presenting poetry.

The artist is heir to an important twentieth-century tradition of visual poetry and connected to those avant-garde that have used text and language-based art.

The Lux Gallery presents selected artworks from the latest abstract series "Beyond Clouds".

Opiemme practice has been dominated by calligrams and a legible text-based art

but in recent works the artist fuses words and abstract imagery.

Opiemme's handwriting is not calligraphy, it distorts and dissolves the words into emotions and movements, without creating an alphabet, it wants to bring poetry through form beyond form.
Since 2000 Opiemme's research has been focused on public art aimed at spreading poetry to the public, with collective performances, installations and street poetry interventions. 

This led Opiemme to perform in different European cities in collaboration with various poets' foundations with the aim of creating new opportunities for reading, as for the mural painted for the Fernando Pessoa and Josè Saramago Foundations in Lisbon, or a 12 story facade dedicated to Wisława Szymborska poetry in Gdansk.
 

 SOLO SHOWS

• 2021
  "GIOVA VRTX 4 - 7 - 66", Portanova12 Gallery, Bologna, Italy
• 2019
  "In Limine Mundi", Burning Giraffe Art Gallery, Torino, Italy
• 2016
  "Heart-shaped box", Pinacoteca Modigliani, Follonica, Italy
• 2015
  "Vortex", Portanova12 Gallery, Bologna, Italy
• 2011
  "No Flags V.01", Weber-Lutgen Gallery, Sevilla, Spain

FAIRS & GROUP SHOWS

• 2021
  Stadtpiraten exhibition, Berlin, Germany
• 2019
  Affordable Art Fair, Febo & Dafne Gallery, Milano (Italy), Bruxelles (Belgium)
• 2016
  Urban Art Fair, Portanova12 Gallery, Paris, France
• 2015
  Swab Fair, Portanova12 Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
• 2015
  Imago Mundi, Fondazione Sandretto Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy
• 2014
  Bienal del Fin del Mundo, 5th edition, Mar del Plata, Argentina
• 2011
  KM011, Natural Science Museum, curated by Luca Beatrice, Torino, Italy
• 2007
  Nuovi Arrivi, Belle Arti Academy, Torino, Italy

PUBLICATIONS

• 2020
  Edoardo Di Mauro, Paola Russo, Una dimensione etica: storia e presente dell’arte pubblica, Prinp
• 2017
  Daniele Tozzi, Words into shapes, The graphic art of calligram, Monsa Publications
• 2015
  Nicholas Ganz, Street messages, Dokument Press Distribution
• 2015
  Luca Beatrice, Imago Mundi Praestigium Italia, Contemporary artist from Italy, Fabrica (Benetton collection)
• 2014
  Clara Isabel Martínez Cantón, Cuestiones Métricas. La Rima y el Estribillo, Punto Rojo Libros S.L.
• 2011
  Luca Beatrice, Km 011. Arti a Torino. 1995-2011, Allemandi
• 2007
  "Incroci", with Tina Sgrò, Dieffe Arte Contemporanea, Torino, Italy

SELECTED PUBLIC ART

• 2018
  Public art for the Fernando Pessoa and Josè Saramago Foundations, Lisbon, Portugal
• 2018
  Mural  tribute to Guido Gozzano and Cesare Pavese, Torino, Italy
• 2017
  “Remanufacture & Harring”, murals for Urban Forms, Lodz, Poland
• 2016
  Collective performance and mural for Urban Forms, Lodz, Poland
  2016
• Street poetry for Gunter Grass Festival, Gdansk, Poland
  2016
• Permanent neon-light installation for Museo Magma, Follonica, Italy
• 2015
  Migrazione, installations for Teatro delle Rocce, curated by Karin Gavassa, Gavorrano, Italy
• 2015
  "Intralci" performance, with Gianluca Petrella, Ambriajazz, Castionetto di Chiuro, Italy
• 2014
  StreetScape, public installation, Como, Italy
• 2014
  Mural for Monumental Art Fest, tribute to Wisława Szymborska, Gdansk, Poland
• 2013
  Street poetry murals and installation, Italy, 2013
  "A journey through painting and poetry, “Breaking apart, recombining, stretching and spreading the written letterform, the public poetic paintings were conceived to be site-specific and included walls and pavement installations across Italy from north to south, including Torino, Bologna, Rieti, Pizzo Calabro, Faggiano (Taranto), Ariano Irpino, Menfi, Genova, Tirano (Sondrio), and finally Rome. The artist is about plumbing the fine lines between public art, street art, and the written word to bring poetry out into the open."  The Huffington Post, 2013
• 2008
  "A polite display of power“, performance, Torino, Italy
• 2007
  "Traffic kills", installation, Madrid, Spain