Gió Marconi

About the Gallery
Gió Marconi Gallery started in 1990 under the initiative of Gió Marconi who had previously created Studio Marconi 17, an experimental space for young artists and curators that he ran from 1987 to 1990. At the beginning, the new gallery was directed by Gió and his gallerist father Giorgio, who in turn had founded the gallery Studio Marconi (1965-1992). In its opening year, the gallery had showcased exhibitions by Martin Kippenberger, Mario Schifano as well as Richard Hamilton. In the 30 years to follow, Gió Marconi Gallery has developed an ongoing vibrant program and its own consistent approach to exhibiting and combining brave choices well ahead of their time. Throughout the decades, the gallery continued to support the careers of its artists, promoting their diverse practices to audiences and institutions at home and abroad. While the focus of the gallery has always been on contemporary positions, it gradually started to include also historical artists of the Studio Marconi.

About the Presentation
The Obsessive Image, a collaborative presentation by Gió Marconi and David Nolan Gallery, explores the recurrence of images, forms, and artistic preoccupations across twentieth-century art. While repetition is one manifestation of obsession, the exhibition considers a wide spectrum of obsessive artistic behavior: the return to a single image, motif, or medium; the meticulous refinement of craft; the accumulation of forms over decades; and the compulsive need to investigate an idea beyond conventional limits. Bringing together Italian and European artists with art of the Americas, the presentation reveals connections between formally and conceptually distinct practices from different generations and cultures, tracing how obsession, in its many forms, becomes a mode of seeing as much as a way of making.

In a culture defined by progress and acceleration with the relentless circulation of news, images, the pressure of markets, and the obsessive measurement of time and productivity, the artists in this exhibition offer a different proposition: that to return to the same image, or form, or the same question or concept, is a very meaningful way to move forward. Artistic obsession slows time. This presentation makes the case for that paradox.