Work sheet
Technical data
| year | 2023 |
| purchase date | acquired in the portfolio |
| estimated current value in € | consult the updated Price Table |
| identification of the subject | abstract painting/reconstructivist work |
| materials and techniques | oil on canvas/mixed media/material work |
| measurements in centimeters cm | 70 x 50 x 1,8 |
| inscriptions | signature |
| inscription technique | oil |
| inscription position | on the back/bottom/right |
| transcription | Valvo |
| authenticity certificate | issued at the same time as the sale |
| art multiples | no print issued |
| state of conservation | intact work |
| location of the work | Rome · Italy |
| copyright | © all rights reserved · global · S.I.A.E. |
High definition image of the work (enlargeable)
Click on the image of the work to enlarge on the Flickr photographic platform (recommended viewing on a PC screen) ⚠️© Copyright: all rights reserved · S.I.A.E. · Any type of use is prohibited.
The image is watermarked with the site logo
Description of work
Taipei, City Center
The work is a tribute to the Taiwanese capital, where the artist went from 2007 to 2009. Compared to the bucolic calm of the rural areas of this island, here the emphasis is placed on the frenzy of city traffic, typical of urban centers. On the modernity of infrastructures. On the vitality of the Taiwanese people.
The artist said: “I have never felt more poignant melancholy than the one I felt when leaving Taipei upon my return to Italy. A city made of sun, flavours, scents that spread into every nook and cranny and that are constantly perceived when walking down the street. A city made of colours, of very particular sounds but, above all, made of people who are unique in the world.”
The work refers in some aspects to another work by the artist: “Urban Chaos”, from 2023, in which emphasis is given to the metropolitan dynamisms of the early 1900s. The work is also related to: “Light and Darkness”, also from 2023, which addresses the theme of the tense relations between the Government of Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China.
The symbolic handwriting, typical of the author, emerges from the canvas in a pronounced way. The graphic structure, in this sense, recalls the Chinese lacquering technique, by which the superficial layers of the engravings stand out compared to the lower ones, by scraping the external material. The crystalline transparencies and the very high degree of luminous albedo also evoke the physical structure of oriental red jade sculptures. The specific chromatic choice, with a red cloak, acts as a filter, strongly attenuating all the underlying tones except black, which stands out greatly, giving, together with red, the dominant character of the composition. In this regard, the work has multiple meanings. In this case: political, cultural, anthropological meanings, always and in any case in a pictorial key. As an example of this it is possible to cite the modern pictorial production of the Chinese Qí Báishí, in whose works, in fact, there is not only an evident bichromatic dominant but also and above all a certain gradation of color towards transparency and nuance. An aspect that we also find, in a certain sense, in “Taipei, City Center”. For similar reasons, connected to the structure and chromatism, this work recalls some elements of the production of Wu Shan Zhuan, who belonged to the so-called ’85 Movement, in the People’s Republic of China, which referred to Dadaism, in particular to Marcel Duchamp, as well as to American pop art and contemporary action art. This movement was subject to massive repression by the Chinese government, which branded art as a “bourgeois phenomenon”, however surviving over the years and also contributing to the Tiananmen Square protests in June 1989.
Other images of the work
(selecting an image will open the photo gallery for this work)
Catalog of works
(Selecting an image will take you to the Catalog of works section)
