Renato Meneghetti Italy, b. 1947

Born Rosà, Vicenza, Italy in 1947.

Renato Meneghetti began to paint when he was really young (Lavandaia, 1954); particularly noteworthy are his first works "Monotipi", 1964 and "Affreschi su tavola", 1965 presented in the sixties by Carlo Munari and the important cycle "Fagocitatrici" of 1968, presented by Lucio Fontana.

Even though Meneghetti always favored painting, he will also dedicated himself to other forms of expression: Music, Multimedia, Installations, Scenography, Photography Architecture, Design, Sculpture.

There are countless sculptures the artist has created for public spaces in various Italian cities. "Meneghetti's sculpture may seem inspired by primitive art, but in these works there is Meneghetti's ability to recycle radiography in creative terms, making it three-dimensional..." (A. Bonito Oliva, 2006).

Since 1979 an unprecedented research in the use of the most advanced technologies of virtual reproduction of bodies and objects has led him to create the "X-Ray" cycle of which G. Dorfles (2000) wrote: "... Meneghetti's radiographs are the only new fact intervened in Italian art in the last twenty years ... it is necessary to recognize that he was undoubtedly among the firsts - and perhaps the first ever - to understand the aesthetic as well as scientific interest of this medium; and above all to identify the profound meaning of such use ... "

For over 30 years his style has influenced young artists: there are dozens of followers of his "Looking inside to See beyond" movement who have ventured into the use of radiography with more or less interesting artistic results.

Radiography and painting make us perceive the message that evokes light as power and energy even more concretely in the "Grandi Maestri" cycle in which Meneghetti from 2000 has applied the "fiction" of the radiographic technique to the pictorial subjects of the great Masters of the past, creating a sort of " imaginary museum" in which the artworks are enhanced by a duplicity, which can come from Klimt, Picasso, Dalì, Leonardo, etc., while the radiographic lens is all of his own creating a wise "reductio ad unum". A research developed "Looking inside" at an infinite number of masterpieces of all times from Caravaggio, Giotto, Mantegna, Perugino, Michelangelo, to Van Gogh and Magritte. "... the shock of contemporary art revives with the "splendor veri" the predictable and static figures of the "symbolism" of the Masters. A real shock. Renato Meneghetti, faithful to painting, has combined the ancient, the modern and the contemporary bringing science into art, into all the arts, he is the ferryman Caronte, from classic to contemporary: the bridge between the history of art and the 3rd millennium ... "(Don G. Billi, 2011).

This is perhaps the most prolific cycle that reaches its maximum expression with the work "Sottopelle - The Dead Christ by Mantegna in x-ray", 2011 created specifically for the 54th International Art Exhibition La Biennale of Venice.

From 2017 the artist shifts his attention from the x-ray to the photography of the visible, invisible for a superficial look, entering a new obsession: the cycle "Beyond appearance, the real". A research that starting from spots, reflections, veins of marble, wood, etc. investigates the interpretations that the mind can attribute to them, suggesting bodies, faces, landscapes, etc. Meneghetti suggests to us his own vision and interpretation through what appears behind and within the appearance: the illusion; the artist's eye and his sensitivity allow the viewer to perceive that "invisible".

 

Renato Meneghetti has exhibited his art pieces in various international museums and galleries, and his works are part of public and private institutions such as the San Fedele Cultural Center, Milan; the Ferrari Gallery - Museum of Contemporary Art, Maranello; the Civic Museum of Contemporary Art - Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona; the Santo Spirito in Sassia Art Gallery, Rome; the Forum Artist Museum, Montese; the Museum of Contemporary Art of Arezzo, Arezzo; the Marina Vittoriosa Museum, Valletta, Malta; the GMB Galéria Mestra Bratislavy, Slovakia; the Sophia Art Museum, Bulgaria; the Tempra Municipal Museum, Magarr, Malta; the Ephesus Museum, Ephesus, Turkey; the Fachwerk Museum, Eppingen, Germany; the Epicentro Museum, Barcelona, Spain; the Center of Visual Art, Summit, New Jersey U.S.A.