ERNESTO TATAFIORE

Biography

Ernesto Tatafiore (*1943 Neapel) had his first exhibition at Lucio Amelio fifty years ago, in 1969. This gallery was the leading Italian avant-garde gallery at that time and Tatafiore repeatedly exhibited there. The following year, in 1970, Tatafiore participated in the Venice Biennale, then again in 1980 and 1990. In 1980 he also participated in the overview exhibition on contemporary Italian art, Arte Povera and Transavanguardia, in three museums, Kunsthalle Basel, Museum Folkwang Essen and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. This was followed in 1982 by a solo exhibition at Kunstmuseum Luzern. In 1985, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York showed the artist’s graphic work. Gallery exhibitions included Paul Maenz, Cologne, André Emmerich, New York, and the Lisson Gallery, London. In 1993, a comprehensive exhibition was held in the Museum moderner Kunst Vienna, 2005 in the Museo Capodimonte in Naples. Tatafiore has occupied a distinct and prominent position in art since the seventies. Very early on, Tatafiore developed the artistic forms of expression that have remained characteristic of him, the use of different techniques and materials, the combination of painting and drawing with collage and object-like sculptures, the subversive approach. A key theme is the French Revolution, including the revolutionary protagonists and the allegory of virtue, the ambivalence inherent in it, the mythological background as well as in general the universal view of history as allegory. It is the subject of a continuous, more playful or enigmatic confrontation that includes language.