PARIS.- MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique is presenting Senza Tempo, the first solo exhibition by Italian master Giorgio Griffa at the Paris gallery.

“Painting captures its time and transcends it, continuing to live beyond its era. Thought is outside of time. It acts without yesterday, today, tomorrow, without present, past, or future. It is memory that anchors time and space.

Timeless. We are capable of conceiving only an endless present.” —Giorgio Griffa, Turin, November 6, 2024.

With these words, Griffa invites us to rethink time not as a linear progression but as a boundless space: an infinite present that exists in constant dialogue with the past and future. For Griffa, painting is a process that extends beyond the moment of creation. It remains open, unfinished, and alive, detached from the historical context of its inception. His art resists definitive narratives, instead inhabiting a suspended dimension where marks and gestures possess their own autonomous energy.

This sense of timelessness unfolds in the exhibition through the pairing of works from 2016 with pieces from 1976–1979. These are not traditional diptychs but dynamic dialogues between canvases that encounter one another across different periods and series.

“I place myself at the service of the work,” Griffa explains. He allows the marks to emerge on their own, guided by an internal logic that transcends his intentions. In his canvases, the focus is not on the gesture but on the unfolding of time through painting. The works expand into space, oscillating between the finite and the infinite.

At the heart of the exhibition are pieces from the Canone Aureo series, created in 2016 and presented in diptychs conceived specifically for the show. This series is dedicated to the golden ratio - a universal proportion that appears in both nature and art, from classical architecture to the spirals of galaxies. For Griffa, the golden ratio is more than a mathematical concept; it symbolises the mystery of the universe. Its value, 1.618033988…, stretches endlessly, much like painting itself - a medium in perpetual evolution.

Griffa uses this proportion as an invisible framework, a connective thread that ties his works to a greater universal order, where art becomes an exploration of “knowing the unknowable.”

While Canone Aureo embodies order, the Segni Primari (Primary Marks) and Contaminazioni (Contaminations) series explore the realms of chaos and freedom. In Segni Primari, Griffa focuses on essential gestures: simple brushstrokes, bands of colour, dots, and commas. The raw, unframed canvas plays a central role, its folds and imperfections preserving the memory of time. Griffa intentionally leaves portions of the surface bare, creating space for emptiness and suggestion - an open invitation for viewers to complete the work with their imagination. This “unfinished” approach, as Griffa describes it, restores the dynamic, process-oriented nature of painting.

In Contaminazioni, Griffa takes this concept further. Here, primary marks intersect and blend, evoking a kind of "biology" of painting. Inspired by Matisse, Griffa eschews purity in favour of complexity and fusion. Broken lines, curves, and straight edges converge in unexpected configurations. For Griffa, contamination is not an aberration but a natural law - a vital principle that governs both biological evolution and artistic creation.

Griffa does not seek to provide answers; instead, he encourages us to ask questions. His canvases, suspended between order and chaos, time and timelessness, remind us that art is not an act of control but an open dialogue with the unknown. Like the golden ratio itself, Griffa’s painting endlessly folds back upon itself, never settling, offering us a present that, perhaps, has no true end.

In Segni primari, Giorgio Griffa began exploring the elemental essence of painting, focusing on the act of mark-making as a universal gesture. This series originated in 1968, a pivotal moment when Griffa decided to strip painting down to its most fundamental components: signs that transcend individuality, embodying the collective memory of humanity.

Each work is composed of simple, repeated marks—vertical, horizontal, or diagonal strokes—left deliberately incomplete on unstretched canvases. The empty spaces between these marks create a rhythm that reflects the continuity of time and the traces of human presence. Griffa described these impersonal signs as belonging to “any hand,” a radical departure from the artist’s traditional role as the unique author of meaning.

The use of unstretched canvases further reinforces this egalitarian ethos. Griffa’s decision to leave folds and creases intact transforms the canvas into more than a mere support; it becomes an integral part of the artwork, carrying its memory of being stored, handled, and unfolded. These subtle details invite the viewer to engage not only with the painted marks but also with the materiality and history of the canvas itself.

Segni primari celebrates the delicate balance between the known and the unknown, the visible and the hidden. Each sign is a narrative in itself, embodying the ancient relationship between humanity and the act of creation. At the same time, the unfinished quality of these works resists closure, leaving space for interpretation and inviting the viewer into an ongoing dialogue with the painting.

Griffa’s minimalist yet profound approach resonates with the timeless rhythm of human experience, making Segni primari a cornerstone of his practice and a touchstone for understanding his broader artistic vision.

Disordine marks the thirteenth cycle in Giorgio Griffa’s practice, a profound exploration of disorder as an essential principle of existence and creation. In this series, the artist examines the transition from order to its inevitable transformation, embracing entropy as a generative force.

Griffa approaches disorder not as a lack of structure but as the engine of new equilibria: a cyclical process where order gives rise to disorder, and disorder, in turn, generates new forms of order. It is a homage to the boundless, undefined energy that shapes our universe, where space and time are not preconditions but consequences of its motion.

The works in Disordine are labeled with progressive combinations of letters, much like license plates. The cycle begins with Disorder AA, Disorder AB, and so forth. Should the series reach ZZ, it will continue with three letters, starting from AAA. With Disordine, Griffa captures the essence of a cosmic intelligence in perpetual evolution, where every act of disorder becomes the origin of a new representation of the world.