Venice | a journey inside Pollock’s Alchemy

Alchemy by Jackson Pollock. Discovering the Artist at Work, running until April 6, 2015 at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, is an extraordinary scientific exhibition that allow the visitors to fully appreciate a masterpiece of the 20th century art. Such kind of cultural events, quite rare not only in Italy, is capable to offer to the general public an truly complete and in-depth knowledge of a work of art.

From the top:
Alchemy by Jackson Pollock. Discovering the Artist at Work
installation views. Ph.Matteo De Fina

The occasion has arisen from the return of the famous painting Alchemy, realized by Jackson Pollock in 1947, back to the Peggy Guggenheim collection to which it belongs. The painting was loaned for a full year to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence for research and conservative purposes.

Left: Jackson Pollock in his studio, ca. 1947/ Herbert Matter, photographer. Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Right: Jackson Pollock at work, 1950 / Rudy Burckhardt, photographer. Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

The restoration and the study campaigns performed on the artwork, revealed a precise scheme in the realization of the painting, like as Pollock had since the beginning a complete idea of the “architecture” of the work and had arranged it like a conductior does with an orchestra.

Jackson Pollock, Alchemy, 1947. Oil, aluminum (and enamel?) paint, and string on canvas, 114.6 x 221.3 cm. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Alchemy at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence. Photo Opificio delle Pietre Dure.

The exhibition carries the visitor across a fascinating journey inside the artwork, which is for this event exceptionally exposed without a protective glass to fully reveal the brightness of its colors and the “three-dimensionality” of the painting surface. The realization technique adopted by Pollock and the restoration process performed are fully presented, also through multimedia techniques, 3D reconstructions, touch-screen systems, interactive exhibits and historical material provided by the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Long Island.

Alchemy by Jackson Pollock. Discovering the Artist at Work
installation view .Ph. Matteo De Fina

Alchemy by Jackson Pollock. Discovering the Artist at Work, is the first event of an articulated program that includes two other major exhibitions presenting a joint tribute to Jackson Pollock and his brother Charles: Jackson Pollock’s ‘Mural’: Energy Made Visible and Charles Pollock: a retrospective, will both run at the Peggy Guggenheim from April 23 to September 14, 2015.

Alchemy by Jackson Pollock. Discovering the Artist at Work
Curated by Luciano Pensabene Buemi and Roberto Bellucci
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
14 February – 6 April, 2015.
www.guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/default.html

Images courtesy of Peggy Guggenheim Collection.