Gianfranco Chiavacci was born on 1 Dicember 1936, and died on 1 September 2011 in Pistoia, where he lived and worked for his whole life. Interested in art since childhood,he began to paint in the early1950s. At first he simply taught himself by observing work from the past, then he began to attend exhibitions and to move increasingly in Tuscan art circles, drawing inspiration from contemporary art shows. His first pictorial works date to the middle of the 50s, and display an interest in the non-representational climate of those years and in international abstract art, which he learnt about through catalogues and magazines. He started to explore visual and kinetic art, coming into contact with exponents of these fields in Milan and Florence, especially at Fiamma Vigo’s Galleria Numero, a lively focus for artistic debate. The years 1964-65 were marked by the beginning of a friendship and a theoretical collaboration with fellow Pistoia Artist Fernando Melani, which lasted until the latter’s death in 1985. In 1962, he started, for job-related reasons , to attend IBM computer programming courses, which introduced him to scientific thought. This was reflected in his first attempts to trasform computer language into painting. The use of binary language, on what were then cumbersome electronic processing units, and the study of its logic, found application in his first work of 1963. The adoption of binarity, defined by the artist << as a two-state logic (not to be confused with duality or dualism) and as an instrumental process-tecnique for creating and experimentally investigating the formal world pertaining to two-dimensionality>>, became an essential core of his theoretical thinking and working practice right trough until his final works in 2007, when he declared that he had reached a conclusive state. The artist never used a computer to produce works, but the binary logic inherent to it as an executive-logical process; his interest, then, was not in the technique, but in the thought underpinning it. His works, almost two thousand in all, take in a wide range of disciplines, and include paintings, executed with a heterogeneous mix of classic and experimental techniques; three-dimensional sculpture-like works; experiments with materials; Interesting photographic studies; small, limited –edition bloklets; and pieces classifiable as mail-art. His theoretical writings, produced independently or on the occasion of solo shows, are also extensive.
GF0358bis -Incrocio di due curve binarie ciascuna realizzata con 11 spostamenti lineari laterali. Pennarello nero e rosso su carta. 36x36cm 1971
2001 "Inhabitants / Art in relationship", curated by Marco Bazzini, Bruno Corà, Mauro Panzera, Palazzo Fabroni contemporary visual arts, Pistoia, 2004 "Gianfranco Chiavacci, Personal", Vannucci Gallery, Pistoia, 2004 "Probes / 10 years with the artists at Palazzo Fabroni", curated by Bruno Corà and Mauro Panzera, Palazzo Fabroni contemporary visual arts, Pistoia. 2008 "Gianfranco Chiavacci, personal", Mac, Monsummano Terme (Pistoia) 2011 "Gianfranco Chiavacci '1970'", Lato, in collaboration with Die Mauer contemporary art, Prato. 2012 "Gianfranco Chiavacci - Photographic Research", edited by Angela Madesani and Aldo Iori, Milan image art fair 2012, in collaboration with Die Mauer contemporary art, Superstudio Più space, Milan. 2013 "Binaria", exhibition curated by Gianluca Marziani and Piergiorgio Fornello, Palazzo Collicola visual arts,Spoleto 2014 "Total Photography", exhibition curated by Valerio Dehò, Palazzo Fabroni contemporary visual arts, Pistoia .2015 "Matter between logic and science" Gianfranco Chiavacci Andrea Marini, Die Mauer Gallery, Prato , 2015 "Strict, Rigolards ..." Gianfranco Chiavacci Francois Morellet, exhibition curated by Alessandro Gallicchio, Die Mauer Gallery - Spazio Artforms, Prato2015 "Full and empty" the perforated jacquard card and the binary art of Gianfranco Chiavacci in the piano concert of Maestro Andrea Nesti, Textile Museum, Prato In collaboration with Artforms and with the patronage of the Municipality of Prato 2015 "Sequence for a winter day" Gianfranco Chiavacci reflected in 10 contemporary artists, curated by Luca Sposato, Die Mauer Gallery, Prato. 2016 "Gianfranco Chiavacci 1967" revived the first solo show of Chiavacci from 1967 presented at the Galleria Numero di Fiamma Vigo in Florence, curated by Alessandro Gallicchio, Die Mauer Gallery, Prato 2016 "A space with three personal shows, Chiavacci, Gori, Turco", Die Mauer Gallery, Prato, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Pecci Museum. New York 2018 "WORKS: 1957 - 2205" Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, Turin 2020, present in the exhibition of the Bertero Collection "Memory and Passions from Capa to Ghirri, masterpieces of the Bertero Collection" Camera Torino, 2020 Milan "Beyaund Photography - Photography of research in Lombardy and Italy in the 70s “