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Rick Lowe, Untitled, 2023, Acrylic and paper collage on canvas, 121.9 × 121.9 cm | Courtesy Rick Lowe and Gagosian I Photo: Thomas Dubrock | © Rick Lowe Studio
The Museum of Palazzo Grimani, together with the Regional Directorate of Veneto Museums of which it is a part, hosts The Arch within the Arc, an exhibition of new works by Rick Lowe (artist born in 1961 in Alabama), inspired by the history of the Palazzo - a rare example of Tuscan-Roman Renaissance architecture in Venice in which ancient and contemporary come together - and the urban dynamics of the Lagoon city. Lowe's paintings on canvas, made with acrylic paint and collage, are born from an in-depth analysis of the arch in architecture. The artist was inspired by the rooms of Palazzo Grimani and its famous Tribuna, starting a reflection on the visual and aesthetic influence of ancient and pre-modern architecture and focusing on the curve, an element "relevant to the arch and to the existence of everything in time." According to Lowe, "everything has a life cycle and within every cycle there is a curve", which in his works translates into abstract compositions that radiate outwards with a circular motion, bringing out a process of pictorial construction and deconstruction that evokes infrastructure, mapping and the experience of moving around the city through its waterways. Furthermore, the artist, inspired by the cooperative nature of the game and the patterns it generates and underlining the visual correspondences with aerial views and city maps, arranges the rectangular compositional units in linear grids that follow one another on the canvas, referring to the Domino games he plays with members of the communities with which he collaborates.