In 1968, Giorgio Griffa (born 1936 in Turin) abandoned figurative painting in favor of a format of abstract painting that still characterizes his work to this day. Painting with acrylic on raw un-stretched canvas, burlap and linen, Griffa's works are nailed directly to the wall along their top edge. When not exhibited, the works are folded and stacked, resulting creases that create an underlying grid for his compositions. In keeping with his idea that painting is “constant and never finished”, many of his works display a deliberate end-point that has been described as “stopping a thought mid-sentence.” Despite early associations with movements such as
Arte Povera and
Minimalism, Giorgio Griffa's work was not exhibited in the United States for 40 years after his first solo exhibition in New York at Ileana Sonnabend's gallery. In 2012, Giorgio Griffa had a solo exhibition, Fragments 1968 - 2012 at Casey Kaplan in New York, leading him to be named one of the “10 thrilling rediscoveries from 2012.”
