Monkey II, 2019
Paolo Colombo is an Italian artist and curator. Born in 1949 in Turin, Italy, Colombo lives and works in Athens, Greece, and is an Art Advisor for the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art (2008 to present).
In 2017, Colombo curated the Iraqi Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Between 2001 – 2007, Colombo was the curator of the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo in Rome, and the director of the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva between 1989 – 2000. In 1999, Colombo curated the 6th Istanbul Biennale. In 1977, Colombo was the first European artist to exhibit at PS1, New York.
After a 25 year hiatus, Colombo took up his personal work as an artist again, coinciding with his move to Athens, Greece. “I just picked up a pencil and my old box of watercolours…and started as if one day had not gone by. I have only used watercolour and paper during my whole life because it is easily transportable and because it is a technique that does not allow for corrections.”
Colombo works exclusively with watercolours and pencil, “a strictly intimate practice which demands to be seen one on one, like one would read a book…it is fundamentally lyrical”. Colombo’s drawings are dream-like meditations, which include poetry, animals, soft washes of colour and his signature chequered squares and fine lines.
The gallery has had two exhibitions with Paolo Colombo. The first, Frosorina (May/ June 2017), was Colombo's first solo exhibition in the UK. More recently we exhibited Colombo’s work along side Kiki Smith’s sculptures in an exhibition titled Of Birds and Monkeys (February/March 2020).