drawings and pastel colours
Francesco Clemente is an Italian contemporary artist. He has lived at various times in Italy, India and New York City. Some of his work is influenced by the traditional art and culture of India. He has worked in various artistic media including drawing, fresco, graphics, mosaic, oils and sculpture. He was among the principal figures in the Italian Transavanguardia movement of the 1980s, which was characterised by a rejection of Formalism and conceptual art and a return to figurative art and Symbolism.
Wolfgang Laib is a contemporary German artist. He is known for his minimalistic and meditative installations that often incorporate natural materials, such as pollen, beeswax, and rice.
Laib studied medicine before turning to art, and his interest in the natural sciences has influenced his artistic practice. He is particularly interested in the connections between the human body, nature, and spirituality, and his work often explores themes of ritual, transformation, and transcendence.
One of Laib's best-known works is "Pollen from Hazelnut," an installation in which he collected pollen from hazelnut trees in the surrounding landscape and displayed it in a large, shallow wooden container. The work is intended to evoke a sense of the cyclical nature of life and the interconnectedness of all living things.
Laib has exhibited his work in museums and galleries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. He represented Germany in the 1982, Venice Biennale and was included with his works in the Documenta 7 in 1982, and then in the Documenta 8 in 1987. In 2015, he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale, one of the world's most prestigious art prizes.
