The artistic research of Eros Bonamini (Verona, 1942–2012) is rooted in a profound relationship between time, space, matter and gesture. Beginning in the 1970s, the artist developed a rigorous and distinctive visual language in which the creative process became an integral part of the artwork. Every intervention leaves a tangible trace, while matter becomes the place where time accumulates, transforms and takes visible form.
The exhibition Eros Bonamini. Tempo diverso, arte continua, hosted by Galleria Orler in Venice, curated by Willy Montini and organised in collaboration with the Eros Bonamini Archive in Verona, brings together works created between 1970 and 2012, many of which have rarely been shown to the public. The selection traces more than four decades of artistic activity, highlighting the continuity of a practice that moved across different materials and techniques while retaining a clear identity.
One of the exhibition’s central sections is devoted to the Cronotopografie, or Chronotopographies, developed primarily during the 1980s. Bringing together the dimensions of time and space, these works translate gesture into sequences of marks, accumulations and layers. Bonamini does not represent time; he makes it tangible through action. Points, lines, spirals and paths become records of duration, preserved within the material surface. Each work retains the memory of the gestures, repetitions and variations involved in its creation.
The foundations of this approach can be traced back to the early 1970s. The Tabelle pittoriche, presented in 1975 at Galleria dello Scudo in Verona, mark an important step beyond traditional painting. Cement, tapes, inks and other materials become instruments in a practice based on direct experimentation. Giorgio Cortenova described this approach as an “empirical working practice”, characterised by the act of “trying and trying again within the field”. The actual time of making thus becomes an essential part of the artwork.
In the early 1980s, this attention to materials also found expression in the Pitture per assorbimento, or Absorption Paintings, in which colour penetrates the canvas through contact and injection. The support is no longer a neutral surface but an active participant in the formation of the work, absorbing and retaining the effects of each intervention.
Between 1983 and 1984, the Chronotopographies developed through overlapping marks, colours, writing and gestures. Repetition does not produce simple seriality: each element alters the balance of the surface, creating an increasingly dense structure. Order and variation coexist in a process where methodological discipline remains open to unpredictability.
From the second half of the 1980s onwards, Bonamini’s research gradually extended beyond the two-dimensional surface. Works increased in scale, and canvases were positioned within space, making their relationship with the surrounding environment an integral part of the experience. A significant moment in the critical assessment of the Chronotopographies came in 1993, when a publication and roundtable discussion at Palazzo Forti in Verona, with Luciano Caramel, Alberto Veca, Eugenio Miccini and Giorgio Cortenova, explored the relationship between Bonamini’s work and the analytical and conceptual investigations of the 1970s. At its centre was the “time of making and of materials becoming”.
During the 1990s, Bonamini’s visual language moved towards a more restrained palette, dominated by white, grey and black. Engraved and burnt plexiglass, mirrored metal altered through repeated actions, and paper and canvases subjected to combustion became instruments in an investigation of traces, transformation and memory. Surfaces were shaped through contrasts of density and sparsity, presence and absence. The introduction of neon further expanded the perceptual possibilities of the work, bringing the surrounding space and the viewer’s gaze into play.
Bonamini described his research through a tension between “the warmth of emotion and the coolness of logic”. The phrase captures the balance between the physical dimension of gesture and the rigour of method. In the Vanitas Cronotopografie, this reflection extends to memory, perception and the human condition. Time becomes an existential dimension, while the marks left on matter evoke both permanence and loss.
The coherence of Bonamini’s artistic journey lies in his ability to explore different techniques and materials while maintaining a constant interest in time as a concrete experience. From his early experiments to engraved, burnt and mirrored surfaces, each work preserves the memory of a process and makes the relationship between action and duration visible.
The continuing relevance of this research is further recognised through Bonamini’s participation in the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2026, as part of the National Pavilion of the Republic of Sierra Leone, with Mondi Presenti – Worlds of Today, curated by Sandro Orlandi Stagl and Willy Montini. His presence places his work within a broader international dialogue between cultures and contemporary artistic languages.
With Tempo diverso, arte continua, Galleria Orler offers visitors an opportunity to rediscover a remarkably coherent artistic journey, in which painting becomes a record of time and matter preserves the memory of gesture. It is a quiet and rigorous practice that continues to offer new possibilities for interpretation.
Eros Bonamini. Tempo diverso, arte continua
Curated by Willy Montini, in collaboration with the Eros Bonamini Archive in Verona
Galleria Orler – Venice
Fondamenta della Pasina, 1114 – San Polo, Venice
Works from 1970 to 2012