(15 May 2017) "Italian art has always been synonymous with creativity and originality and Isgrò - the artist, poet, playwright, writer and director who is renowned on the international scene thanks to his particular production - including "erasures" - which originates from an extraordinary language, the result of actions that redefine the meaning of the texts, giving a new and greater force to the words. Isgrò's creativity does not destroy nor censor texts, but enhances language by synthesizing it, and sometimes changing it through gesture and irony. " The Italian Ambassador to Slovakia, Gabriele Meucci, introduces the first exhibition in Slovakia dedicated to Emilio Isgrò, an artist who has created works of art with a new and revolutionary language since the early 1960s. The exhibition, which features 50 works - will be inaugurated on May 18th at 17.00 at the Art Gallery of the City of Zilina with Isgrò. It was curated by Laura Monaldi and organised by the Italian Institute of Culture in Bratislava, the Art Gallery of the City of Zilina, with the Carlo Palli Archives of Prato who is the lender of all works, and the Italian Embassy. The event is sponsored by Minister of Culture, Marek Madaric and the President of the Zilina Region, Juraj Planar. Isgrò arrived in Slovakia after important exhibitions in early 2017 in London and Paris. During his long career, he attended the Venice Biennial (1972, 1978, 1986, 1993), and in 1977 won the first prize at the Biennial of Sao Paulo in Brazil (1977). At the Expo in Milan, 2015, a giant 7-metre marble sculpture of his was on display and visited by millions of people. (Red)

A UNIQUE GENRE

Milan Mazur, the Director of the Art Gallery of the City of Zilina, writes in the exhibition catalogue, "Emilio Isgrò is an artist who began his wonderful creative adventure in the early 1960s with a unique genre that explores the links between literature, and the visual arts, expanding on both genres. From his "erasures" arise words that when put together create unusual, funny phrases, as if at the bottom of everything - through various passages, erasures, filters, and more - what remains is poetry, a basic element that illuminates our existences".