Editions

Modem gave carte blanche to the artist Francesco Clemente, for the cover and the inserts of the editions Modem Milan and Modem Paris of September 2011, dedicated to the SS12 collections.

Francesco Clemente was born in Naples in 1952. He is now a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. For four decades and always with the same poetic approach, Francesco Clemente has explored ambivalence, opportunities, joy and sorrow and the human being's desires.

In the '70s, his work served to document his interest in the contemplative traditions of India, where he lived for several years. In 1981, he moved to New York with his wife, Alba, and their four sons. During the '80s, he exhibited in prestigious museums such as Whitechapel (London), the Art Institute (Chicago), the Nationalgalerie (Berlin), the Metropolitan Museum and the Dia Center (New York). In the '90s, his work was presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and at the Royal Academy (London), at the Centre Pompidou (Paris) and at the Sezon Museum (Tokyo). In 1999 and 2000, the Guggenheim museums in New York and Bilbao organised the most important retrospective to date of his work. In 2004, he exhibited at the Roses Art Museum of Massachusetts and at the Irish
Museum in Dublin; in 2006, at the Maxxi in Rome and in 2009 at the MADRE Museum in Naples.

Throughout the course of his career, he has collaborated withother artists, painting with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, and illustrating poems by Robert Creeley, Allen Grinsberg, John Wieners and Rene Richard.

In 2011, he exhibited at Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle and in September at the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence, where he presented 78 interpretations of tarot cards, whose mystical designs are reproduced on the dividers of Modem Milan and Modem Paris.

These cards, created in Naples, New York, Madras and Taos (New Mexico), constitute a journey through places with which he has the most profound links. His family and he are represented, as well as figures from the worlds of art, literature, theatre, cinema, fashion, all who have played a part in his story: Allen Ginsberg, Salman Rushdie, Philipp Glass, Scarlett Johansson, Jasper Johns, Diane von Fürstenberg, Max Siedel, Marisa Monte...

"The Tarot Cards of Francesco Clemente” éditions Hirmer Verlag, 168 pg.

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