If I had to sum up Niele Toroni in one word without hesitation that word would be 'loyalty'.
Loyalty in friendship for I have had the joy of sharing his artistic adventure and epicurean
side for more than thirty years. And loyalty in his work because I know no other artist who
has followed the same path without ever deviating from his goal. Yvon Lambert _uvres sur
papier et photographies La Collection Yvon Lambert dialogue avec des artistes contemporains
Yokohama Museum of Art 1998 The fourth volume of the Lambert Collection art book series had to
be devoted to Niele Toroni and Yvon Lambert such is the strength of the relationship between
the collector and the artist. Their relationship began back in 1970 when Toroni presented his
first exhibition at the gallery and continues through 2021 when the Lambert Collection will
be exhibiting its full catalogue of the artist's work spotlighting two works produced in situ
for the museum opening in 2000 composed of a series of paintings on paper tracing paper
canvas wood and even on a school blackboard. This book of the exhibition contains gallery
views as well as an interview between Niele Toroni and Yvon Lambert. For more than fifty years
Niele Toroni has been developing a subversive and radical vision of the pictorial act. As early
as 1966 his method had already begun to take shape using a brush no.50 to print repetitive
brushstrokes at regular 30-cm intervals. This work was presented for the first time in 1967
beside Daniel Buren Olivier Mosset and Michel Parmentier in the pop-up exhibition
Manifestation I at the 18th Young Painter's Fair at Paris's Museum of Modern Art. The work
painting - as the painter calls it - consists of a reproducing a single minimal systematic
gesture which is never the same. The work painting has no story to tell and no underlying
message to convey. What matters is what you see. The works reboot our visual experience.
Changing viewers' perceptions is Niele Toroni's great ambition for him painting means
learning to see again.
