Installation view of “Travel Diary”
Photo: Courtesy of Vito Schnabel Gallery and the artist
3. Francesco Clemente Maps Memory and Mysticism at Vito Schnabel Gallery
Renowned for blending Western art traditions with Eastern mystical philosophies and aesthetics, Francesco Clemente traces nearly three decades of pilgrimage as central to his painting practice at Vito Schnabel Gallery in Chelsea. Running through April 18, each work in “Travel Diary” corresponds to a distinct place and moment of the past, folding the artist’s nomadic life into a lyrical visual memoir. The earliest canvas, Dormiveglia I (1998), is from a series that takes its title from an Italian term for the threshold that lies between sleeping and awakening. Reminiscent of a tarot card, the canvas towers, featuring a fragmented yet radiant, goddess-like figure—an image of consciousness in flux.
In Trungpa (2012), Clemente draws on Buddhist tradition as an eight-spoked wheel encircles a bird perched on a human skull. The central red bird is one of many throughout the piece, though the rest are colored oxidized copper-green and recede into the background. The gallery describes this motif as “perhaps an analogy for the artist,” a clear point of focus in an otherwise shifting field of memories and places.