The 90 Years of Legendary Italian Artist Giorgio Griffa. All the Exhibitions Celebrating the Master's Birthday

Giorgio Griffa, the Italian painter known for his radical and minimalist approach, turned 90 on March 29, 2026. A comprehensive program of celebrations includes the exhibition "Summer 69" at the Fondazione Giorgio Griffa in Turin (through July 2, 2026), which revisits his breakthrough summer of 1969 with photographs by Paolo Mussat Sartor alongside his early and recent works. The Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea has opened a monographic room with works from its permanent collection, and the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino will dedicate a similar space in May. The MAXXI – Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo has acquired six monumental works spanning over thirty years of Griffa's career, from the 1970s to the early 2000s.

This celebration matters because Griffa is one of the most coherent and radical protagonists of contemporary painting since the 1960s, having developed a solitary, rigorous practice based on elementary signs, rhythms, and repetitions on raw, unstretched canvases. His work, which resists easy classification and dialogues with Arte Povera and Minimalism without belonging to either, has gained increasing international recognition, notably with an American rediscovery in New York in 2012. The institutional acquisitions and exhibitions across Turin and Rome affirm his enduring relevance and his deep roots in Italy's cultural fabric, while also introducing his essential, process-based painting to new audiences.