QUADRANTE FIRENZE 1961 – 1964		Catalog
through the informal
curated by ANDREA ALIBRANDI
20 december 2002 – 1 march 2003

Through the informal is the first major exhibition dedicated to the work of the Galleria Quadrante. The gallery was born in 1959 as a studio for contemporary art, organised by Matilde Giorgini around the Equipe di Quadrante group, which brought together Vinicio Berti, Silvio Loffredo, Gualtiero Nativi, Leonardo Ricci, Antonio Bueno, Alberto Moretti, Venturino Venturi and the young critic Alberto Busignani. It opened as a gallery in June 1961, in a space at Florence’s number 18 Lungarno Acciaioli. This was a space designed by Vittorio Giorgini, and represented one of the first examples of “informal” architecture in Italy. From then on, il Quadrante began to publish a newsletter, which was made up solely of the catalogues from their exhibitions. The writers were the most important critics of the time (Umbro Apollonio, Francesco Arcangeli, Giulio Carlo Argan, André Bloc, Palma Bucarelli, Maurizio Calvesi, Giovanni Carandente, Luigi Carluccio, Gillo Dorfless, Michelangelo Masciotta, Ermanno Migliorini, Agnoldomenico Pica, Nello Ponente, Pierre Restany, Franco Russoli, Edoardo Sanguineti, Michel Tapié, Marco Valsecchi, Emilio Villa, Lara Vinca Masini, Marisa Volpi, etc.).
“Il Quadrante would be a “trend-setting” gallery, in the sense that it would act according to what are considered the most authentic principles governing contemporary art”. That was the declaration made by Matilde Giorgini who, in Florence, guided the gallery with enthusiasm and intelligence through a very busy period of exhibitions and activity: from June 1961 to June 1964. On this occasion, a substantial selection of work displayed at the Quadrante over the last forty years is presented, reaffirming how the artists who displayed there are still relevant today. These are: Vinicio Berti, Gastone Biggi, Antonio Bueno, Corrado Cagli, Nicola Carrino, Antonio Corpora, Giuseppe De Gregorio, Piero Dorazio, Lucio Fontana, Nato Frascà, Albino Galvano, Riccardo Guarneri, Robert Lapoujade, Paola Levi Montalcini, Silvio Loffredo, Paolo Masi, Alberto Moretti, Gualtiero Nativi, Achille Pace, Teresa Pagowska, Hans Platschek, Piero Raspi, Gerardo Rueda, Antonio Sanfilippo, Paolo Scheggi, Giulio Turcato, Giuseppe Uncini, Eugène Van, Emilio Vedova and Venturino Venturi.