Achille Perilli
Born 1/28/27.
In the last 20 years he focused his production on the dynamic, complex structures that link together in elements, after opposing in a positive-negative sense, determining an ambiguity of interpretation with regard to their effective placement. Segmented shapes muted from the circle to the square, lines and flat surfaces ready to suggest multiple dimensions. They make an axonometric projection of crystal clear colors. The elements of the imagery disentangle like multi-faceted ribbons collected where also the color fields are attentively balanced to favor the deceptive and changing dynamics in play. Perilli perceives art as a display of a new, special dislocation of the figures with laws and proper articulations. The space is dominated by the orthodoxies of a single focal point of perspective that conjures up to face a mental happening despite what becomes operative as already seen in Avant-garde Russian style of Structuralism and Constructivism thanks to the methodology and in the rationalization of a concept altogether theoretical.
The earliest works of the artist imitate the Abstract styles of Kandinsky e Klee (indicated in the painting Forme in nevrosi, Rome, National Gallery of Modern Art) and predisposes the development for the later works that aim at a spaciousness not objectively recognizable, truly some of the advanced kaleidoscopic design forms and serial genuine achievement that is truly “out-of-prospective” repudiating the canonical space and the conventional rules.
Perilli was born in Rome in 1927. As an upper school student in Rome, he exhibited with fellow students, Dorazio e Guerrini, in an exhibition at the Liceo Giulio Cesare. In 1945 he began to attend courses in literature at the university with an emphasis on art history. He graduated under Lionello Venturi, his mentor, after having discussed his thesis on the subject of the metaphysical paintings of Giorgio De Chirico. Again in 1945, he founded Gruppo Arte Sociale (GAS) with Dorazio, Guerrini, Vespignani and others. In this period, he met Attardi, Accardi, Sanfilippo, Turcato and Consagra in the studio of Guttuso and in 1947 he adhered to the Forma 1 manifest, that was published in the magazine with the same name. The manifest supported Abstractism as a single, new artistic language and expressed a strong political commitment. The same year he went to Paris, for the first time, and to Prague where he organized two exhibitions at the First World Festival of Youth and participated in the first exhibit of Forma 1 at the Art Club. He was present at the First Congress of International Art Critics in Paris in 1948 (solicited by Lionello Venturi). Max Bill invited him to his studio in Zurich.
After his re-entry in Italy, he established contacts with Soldati and Licini and traveled with Dorazio and Guerrini to Salzburg, while in Munich he was in contact with artists of the Bauhaus and he passed through Vienna. In 1950 he was in Paris with a scholarship, there he enlarged his already vast artistic circle. Created, with Dorazio and Guerrini the Library-Gallery Age d’Ôr that, together with the Art Club, organized an exhibit in Rome entitled “Abstract and Concrete Art in Italy” at the National Gallery of Modern Art (1951). This was important because it was the first all-inclusive exhibit of Italian Abstract art.
Perilli and the others of the Age d’Ôr (that also opened an Italian branch in Florence) exhibited together with Burri, Capogrossi, Ballocco and Colla. Invited by Fontana to the Triennale of Milan, together with Dorazio and Guerrini – (with whom he exhibited with in Zurich in a group show organized by Max Bill) – produced two vast wall murals that were awarded the silver medal. In 1952 he served his obligatory military service but following that, he exhibited (Fondazione Origine) and contributed to the birth of the magazine, Visual Arts. He traveled to Spain, stopped in Marseille and met Giacomo Balla. In 1954, an article of his on Dadaism was printed and, from that moment on, became a specific subject of his interest, elaborated in Paris with Tristan Tzara (1956) and later in Berlin (1957). In the years that followed he was the curator of many exhibits and theatrical productions. He taught at the Superior School of Industrial Design in Rome and began to produce etchings (1966). He traveled to Warsaw and to Krakow (1970). In the 80’s he had important personal shows to his credit and those of the artists of “Forma 1”. Worth mentioning are : the anthological at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome, (1988) and the exhibit at the upper school of Decorative Arts in Prague (2002).
