Curated by Andrea Bellini

Featuring three dozen works, this exhibition forms a retrospective in nuce of an artist only belatedly receiving his institutional due. Born in Turin in 1936, Giorgio Griffa came of age when painting’s increasingly embattled status often gave rise to extrapictorial experiments. If Griffa clung doggedly to painting, he refused to stretch it into framed propriety. Instead, he developed the technique he uses to this day: Applying acrylic directly to unprimed canvas, he folds and unfolds works unceremoniously, letting creases add to the effect of his pastel strokes, which are by turns geometric and whimsical, ordered and irregular. A catalogue with contributions from Martin Clark, Suzanne Cotter, Chris Dercon, Hans Ulrich Obrist, the curator, and others promises to flesh out the spare critical literature on the artist. Travels to Bergen Kunsthall, Norway, Aug. 28–Oct. 18; Fondazione Giuliani, Rome, Feb. 2–Apr. 4, 2016; Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal, summer 2016.

— Ara H. Merjian