From 4 September 2020 to 10 January 2021, the rooms of the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria in Perugia will host the works of Brian Eno (Woodbridge, UK, 1948), influential visual artist, composer and musician.
The personal, from the title Reflected, created in collaboration with Atlante Servizi Culturali, will present three works that will dialogue with the masterpieces of the most representative artists of the museum's collection, such as Piero della Francesca (Polyptych of Saint Anthony), Fra Angelico (Guidalotti Polyptych) and Perugino (Christ died in pity).
Brian Eno, 'musician-non-musician' as he defined himself, inventor of theAmbient music, record producer and visual artist, has always sought a mix between the various fields of investigation of his creative research.
“Painting and music – said Brian Eno – have always been intertwined for me. I started playing with light as a medium around the same time I started playing when I was a teenager. When I think back to what I did in the following years, it seems to me that I tried to slow down the music to make it more like painting, and to give movement to the images to bring them closer to the music… in the hope that the two activities would meet and merge in the middle ”.
The exhibition will offer an unprecedented dialogue between the ancient works and the Lightbox by Brian Eno, each of which unfolds seamlessly through combinations of seductive self-generated 'color landscapes' using a series of interwoven LED lights. Stretching the boundaries of time with a work that seemingly has no beginning, no end, no narrative, Eno invites people to linger in one place for some time. “If a painting hangs on a wall – underlines Brian Eno -, we don't feel that we are missing something if we divert our attention. Instead, with music and video, we still have the expectation of some kind of show, of storytelling. My music and videos change, but they change slowly. And they change in such a way that it doesn't matter if you lose part of it."
The exhibition itinerary will also be enriched by Raphael Revisited (2011), a silkscreen by British artist Tom Phillips (London, 1937), linked to Brian Eno by a bond of friendship and collaboration, which began in 1964 at the Ipswich Art School, where Phillips taught.
The work draws inspiration from a votive tablet, datable to the end of the fifteenth century, by an anonymous Umbrian painter previously identified with a very young Raphael (kept at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool) which will be used by Eno for the album cover Another Green World.
Brian Eno (Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, 1948), is an English producer, composer, keyboardist and singer who helped define and reinvent the sound of some of the most popular bands of the 80s and 90s and who created the genre Ambient music.
Already in the late 60s, when he was an art student, Eno began to experiment with electronic music and in 1971 he joined the Roxy Music as keyboard player and technical consultant. After leaving the band in 1973, he embarked on a solo career.
In the mid-70s, Eno began developing his ambient music theory, creating subtle tools for influencing mood through sound, which led to the release of albums such as Discreet Music (1975) Music for Films (1978) and Music for Airports (1979)
During this period Eno also began producing albums for other artists, and his experimental approach to music production suited alternative artists such as I must, Ultravox and David Bowie, with whom he created the famous Berlin trilogy (Low, Heroes e Lodger).
Among the various collaborations we mention those with i Talking Heads (Stay in Light, 1980) and U2 (Unforgettable Fire, 1984, The joshua tree, 1987 e Achung Baby, 1991) and the recent one with i Coldplay (Viva la vida.
As a visual artist Brian Eno has exhibited regularly since the late 70s. His work is devoted almost exclusively to the possibilities offered by the medium of light. In 2009 he was invited to exhibit on the iconic sails of the Sydney Opera House in Australia, using powerful floodlights to cast light across Circular Quay. He has exhibited, among others, at the Venice Biennale (2006), at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2001), as well as in Mexico (2019 and 2010) and in many notable galleries, such as the Paul Stolper Gallery in London ( 2019, 2018 and 2016).
Throughout the 90s, he also worked with visual artists to score their installations.
