Etel Adnan
Etel Adnan, 079 D14, 2010. View at Sala Trenker, Ortisei. Biennale Gherdëina ∞. Ph. Tiberio Sorvillo
Etel Adnan, Sunken sun, 2016. View at Sala Trenker, Ortisei. Biennale Gherdëina ∞. Ph. Tiberio Sorvillo
Over a career which spanned more than half a century, Etel Adnan’s polymathic practice ranged from painting, drawing, films, textiles and poetry to political journalism and novels. While she began experimenting with abstract form in the 1950s, upon moving to California to study philosophy, the 1960s and ‘70s saw her practice flourish into multiple forms that reflected on love in the face of war, on landscape, on cities, weather and architecture. Her novel Sitt Marie-Rose (1978) is still considered one of the foremost novels on the ravages of the Lebanese Civil War; while other works, such as Seasons (2008) and Journey to Mount Tamalpaïs (1986), reveal the way that places, atmospheric events and landscapes coexist in dialogue with the artist and poet’s sensibility. When, in the 1970s, Adnan first encountered Mount Tamalpaïs in California, she became so fascinated with its features, hues and personality that it remained a constant friend and source of artistic inspiration throughout her life. Having left us in 2021, Adnan remains one of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and an incredibly powerful and compassionate voice on what it is to exist on this Earth, as a human as well as more-than-human being.
In Biennale Gherdëina ∞, we present two small-scale paintings in which a near-abstract, minimal sun plays with the horizon line and its hues. An optimism and playfulness inflect both works, as well as a deep connection with the astral being, as a thinking and painting companion. In Simone Fattal’s words, “Adnan’s paintings play the role the old icons used to play for people who believed. They exude energy and give energy. They shield you like talismans. They help you live your everyday life… They reflect praise of the universe, the experience of it, immersion in it, participation in its formation. No lamentation, no elegy. Love.”
Etel Adnan
Etel Adnan, 079 D14, 2010. View at Sala Trenker, Ortisei. Biennale Gherdëina ∞. Ph. Tiberio Sorvillo
Etel Adnan, Sunken sun, 2016. View at Sala Trenker, Ortisei. Biennale Gherdëina ∞. Ph. Tiberio Sorvillo
Over a career which spanned more than half a century, Etel Adnan’s polymathic practice ranged from painting, drawing, films, textiles and poetry to political journalism and novels. While she began experimenting with abstract form in the 1950s, upon moving to California to study philosophy, the 1960s and ‘70s saw her practice flourish into multiple forms that reflected on love in the face of war, on landscape, on cities, weather and architecture. Her novel Sitt Marie-Rose (1978) is still considered one of the foremost novels on the ravages of the Lebanese Civil War; while other works, such as Seasons (2008) and Journey to Mount Tamalpaïs (1986), reveal the way that places, atmospheric events and landscapes coexist in dialogue with the artist and poet’s sensibility. When, in the 1970s, Adnan first encountered Mount Tamalpaïs in California, she became so fascinated with its features, hues and personality that it remained a constant friend and source of artistic inspiration throughout her life. Having left us in 2021, Adnan remains one of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and an incredibly powerful and compassionate voice on what it is to exist on this Earth, as a human as well as more-than-human being.
In Biennale Gherdëina ∞, we present two small-scale paintings in which a near-abstract, minimal sun plays with the horizon line and its hues. An optimism and playfulness inflect both works, as well as a deep connection with the astral being, as a thinking and painting companion. In Simone Fattal’s words, “Adnan’s paintings play the role the old icons used to play for people who believed. They exude energy and give energy. They shield you like talismans. They help you live your everyday life… They reflect praise of the universe, the experience of it, immersion in it, participation in its formation. No lamentation, no elegy. Love.”