Memories of war and imprisonment

In 1989 Renzo Biasion sought to preserve the memory of his oeuvre, bequeathing seventy drawings dated between 1941 and 1944 to the Giorgio Cini Foundation. The gift is composed of sketches Biasion made during the war and bears witness to a critical moment in his life and art: the time he was stationed on the Greek-Albanian front and interned in Germany and Poland.
The drawings were part of a larger body of work, most of which was destroyed after 8 September 1943. Alongside the memories he recorded in literary works such as Tempi Bruciati (1948) and Sagapò (1953), they enable the historical and artistic reconstuction of events that had a profound impact on Biasion, the artist and the man.
The drawings do not focus on the horror and destruction of war. Rather than denouncing the atrocity of conflict, Biasion offers a vision of the sempiternal continuance of nature and life. He records only what he wants to see, nurturing a concept of absolute beauty that is essential in overcoming daily struggle and in maintaining the illusion of a day-to-day ‘normality’. As he himself wrote in Tempi bruciati (1948): ‘The marvel of beauty, the tranquillity of nature. Why do men struggle so?’

Venice, Palazzo Cini at San Vio
27 March – 30 May 2004

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