Saturday 10 December next at 18.00 at the CRAC Puglia (Contemporary Art Research Center) of the Rocco Spani Onlus Foundation will take place the inauguration of the retrospective exhibition of the famous master Winfred Gaul (Düsseldorf, 1928 - Kaiserswerth, 2003) curated by Alberto Zanchetta. The exhibition is promoted and organized by the CRAC Puglia, sponsored by the Municipality of Taranto, the Puglia Region (Culture Department, Protection and Development of Cultural Enterprises, Tourism, Development and Tourist Enterprise) and the University of Bari "Aldo Moro" and in collaboration with territorial and national institutions, the Amica Sofia associations of Perugia, F@MU (Families at the Museum), the Committee for the Quality of Life, Ella, the Italian Federation of Associations and Clubs for UNESCO of Taranto, the Marco Motolese Association, the Contamination Association, Friends of Taranto Museums, Tarenti Cives, #Ante Litteram, Taranto Group and FAI Taranto delegation.

The exhibition represents the first retrospective organized on national soil for the twentieth anniversary of the death of the German artist and brings together a significant selection of works from the Recycling 1981-1997 series, in the wake of visual research and experimentation, with works created through the recycling of old cartons.

Winfred Gaul was the protagonist of artistic research in Germany and Europe throughout the second half of the twentieth century and, over the years, he had important links with the Belpaese, collaborating with some of the most successful Italian galleries. An attentive and refined researcher, he founded analytical painting in the 70s and made a decisive contribution to the international development of this artistic movement. As the curator states: "instead of facing painting as a problem to be solved, Gaul interrogates it as one would an oracle, waiting for a revelation that allows him to broaden his repertoire, in the hope of completing an art of 'après l'art. Admitting that he didn't become an artist to bore himself and others, Winfred Gaul insists on stripping painting of any figurative pretext in order to be able to investigate it in its stopping or resuming, relaunching and recycling points It is with this spirit that he approaches the Recycling series through which he intends to amend the maldresse of some of his old drawings which, reduced to shreds, are glued onto Bristol or Fabriano cardboard."

For the occasion, a publication was produced for the Peccolo editions of Livorno containing a preface by Fabiano Marti, Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Taranto; an introduction by Giovanna Tagliaferro, director of the Rocco Spani Onlus Foundation; critical texts by Alberto Zanchetta and Roberto Lacarbonara; testimonies of the artist himself and of Roberto Peccolo. The publication is also accompanied by a rich iconographic apparatus.