Valerio Carrubba (b. 1975) is an Italian painter who works in oil on stainless steel: he paints each finished image a second time over the first layer, and the slight mismatch between the two layers is the artistic result. The titles of his steel paintings are palindromes. The Don Auction House collection holds 4 works, all of them paintings dated 2009 and 2010. Estimates in this section: from 480 000 to 600 000 ₽.
Valerio Carrubba was born in 1975 in Syracuse, Sicily, and lives and works in Milan. From 1994 to 2000 he studied at the Brera Academy in Milan, where his teacher was the artist Alberto Garutti. In 1997 he completed the Advanced Course in Visual Arts at the Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como and took part in a workshop led by Jimmie Durham at Viafarini, the Milanese non-profit organisation; the workshop was curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. In 2008 he held a residency at the Triangle Artists Workshop (Triangle Arts Association) in Brooklyn, New York. Two early works of 1998, made before he turned to painting on steel, belong to the Brusarosco Collection at Viafarini in Milan: “Senza titolo (Pavone)”, acrylic on canvas, and “Senza titolo (Battaglia)”, acrylic and dried paint on wood.
All the works in the collection are paintings on steel: the oil is applied not to canvas but to a sheet of polished metal. They are dated 2009 and 2010, the closing years of the list kept by the Viafarini archive, which records the artist’s works from 1996 to 2010 with titles, years, media and dimensions; each work in the collection appears in that list under the same title, year and medium. In the catalogue they all belong to the painting section. The formats are modest, from 57 × 40 to 73 × 66 cm, and the artist, year, medium and dimensions are stated in each lot record. Works by artists of the same period are gathered in the contemporary art section.
The method has been described by the Milanese gallery that represented him, by the S.A.C.S. archive of the Riso museum in Palermo and by Carrubba himself in a 2012 interview. He paints in oil on stainless steel, the polished metal support emphasising the layering of paint. He then paints the finished picture a second time on top of the first layer, trying to repeat it exactly. Exact repetition, however, is unattainable, and it is the slight mismatch of lines and forms that becomes the artistic result: the brushstroke loses its living gesture and the image doubles very faintly. Carrubba has linked this device to the idea of the “body double” and to the neutralising of the romantic gesture in painting. The second constant feature is the titles: the steel paintings carry palindromes, which read the same in both directions – “Anna”, “Denned”, “If I” and “Deer Breed”. The subjects are transfigured bodies and faces, “living corpses” derived from anatomical illustrations in medical manuals of different periods.
In 2009 Carrubba was one of the twenty finalists of the tenth Premio Cairo; the finalists’ exhibition was held at the Palazzo Permanente in Milan, and the prize went to Pietro Ruffo. He took part in Prague Biennale 3 (2007) and in Prague Biennale 4, section Individuals – Extended Painting 3 (2009). In 2008 he was included in T2 “50 Moons of Saturn”, the Turin triennial, at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, curated by Daniel Birnbaum. Solo exhibitions were held at the Pianissimo gallery in Milan (2006 and 2009), at the Monica De Cardenas gallery in Milan (2012) and at the CRAC centre in Cremona (2013). Group shows included PAC in Milan (2010), GAMeC in Bergamo (2010 and 2014), the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan (2012), the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice (2014) and “One Torino” at Palazzo Cavour in Turin (2014, curated by Maurizio Cattelan).
Works by Valerio Carrubba from the collection are sold in the online auctions of the Don Auction House, which is based in Rostov-on-Don. The estimate for each lot is given in its record; the final price is settled in the bidding. The selection of lots changes from sale to sale, so the current list is best checked in the catalogue and in the painting section, while the schedule of forthcoming sales is on the auctions page. Registration and bidding are explained under how to buy a painting. If you own a work by the artist and wish to consign it, the terms of acceptance, the valuation procedure and the commission are set out under how to sell a painting. The full list of artists in the collection is in the artists section.
