Cinema 02/1

Gianfranco Pardi was born in 1933 in Milan. From the outset, his research has focused on space and on constructive planning that gives rise to works of great formal rigor, characterized by the integration of drawing, painting and sculpture into a spatial dimension of architectural breath. In 1959 he held his first personal exhibition in Brescia, at the Alberti Gallery, while the following year it was hosted by the Galleria Colonna in Milan. During the sixties he developed a style that integrated drawing, painting, sculpture and architecture. His participation in the collective exhibition La figuration narrative dans l'art contemporain in Paris in 1965.

In 1967 he began his collaboration with the Marconi Studio in Milan and dedicated himself to the creation of works that were a reinterpretation of historical avant-gardes such as Abstractism, Suprematism, Constructivism and Neoplasticism. In the Seventies he developed in his Architecture the will to build and establish a space through painting, since he believed that this expressive means could immediately produce the idea. His works develop through geometric signs and gestures which, together with a few colors, help him to express the concept of constructiveness.

In 1974, and later in 1993, he took part in the XXVII Biennale of the Palazzo della Permanente in Milan. In 1981 he was part of two important collective exhibitions such as Lines of artistic research in Italy 1960/1980, at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, and Il luogo della forma, at the Museo di Castelvecchio di Verona. In 1984 the University of Parma organized a major anthology and two years later he participated with a solo show at the Venice Biennale, the Milan Triennale and the Rome Quadrennial. In the late eighties and early nineties he produced the works of the Cinema, Monk and Maschere series, focusing on the use of iron supports. Later his artistic research focused on the theme of the "Montagna-Sainte Victoire", inspired by the works of Cézanne, and the cycles entitled Nagjma, inspired by the light and the night of Tangier, and Box, or works made with cardboard boxes.

In 1998, Palazzo Reale in Milan hosts a solo exhibition of his own.The following year a series of important exhibitions were organized in Germany at the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Frankfurt, at the Bochum Museum in Bochum and at the Kulturhistorisches Museum in Stralsund, while in 2000 the solo exhibition entitled Homeless at the Giò Marconi Gallery in Milan was inaugurated. The Sheets retrospective was held at the Galleria Fumagalli in Bergamo in 2002, while in 2003 he exhibited again at the Giò Marconi Gallery with a series of works entitled Danza e Restauro. 

During his career he made numerous sculptures for public and private spaces: 1988 Albergo Bellevue, Malcesine (Verona); 1995 General command of the Finance Police, Via XX Settembre, Rome; 1996 Ship Costa Vittoria, Genoa; 1998 Casa Zanaria, Rue de Bièvre, Paris; 1999 Soundtrack, SNAM San Donato Milanese (Milan); 2001 Box, Cascina Mangiagruppa Zeme Lomellina (Pavia); 2002 Sheet, ACF Contact Brembate Sopra (Bergamo); 2006 Dance, Piazza Amendola, Milan; 2015 Sprigionamenti, Negombo, Bay of San Montano (Ischia). Member of the National Academy of San Luca since 2008.

He died in Milan on 2 February 2012. In October 2013, the Cultural Association Gianfranco Pardi / Archive Gianfranco Pardi was established, in memory of the Artist with the aim of promoting and disseminating knowledge and figure.