Willy Verginer
Willy Verginer was born in Bressanone (BZ) in 1957. Lives and works in Ortisei (BZ).
He attended the Art Institute of Ortisei, where he studied painting. After graduation he worked in various wood carving workshops in Val Gardena. In the eighties, started from the tradition of its valley, he tried as a self-taught to break away from conventional schemes. From 1984 to the 1989 he teaches at the Professional Sculpture School of Selva (BZ). In one of the first personal exhibitions, curated by Danilo Eccher at the Spatia Gallery in Bolzano, the works are abstract, in wood with the combination of natural materials. The nineties are characterized by a profitable exhibition activity and in this period the artistic group is also formed Trismus, consisting of Walter Moroder, Bruno Walpoth e Willy Verginer. Ten years of research followed, of crisis and not very creative years. In 2005 he faces the art scene again by exhibiting in Trento at the Castello Gallery: Verginer radically changed the style and presented himself with figurative works, developing an original plastic language by combining the use of an acrylic paint with purely artificial colors to the carving. Personal exhibitions in Vicenza follow, Milan, Bergamo and Trento curated by Alberto Zanchetta, Luca Beatrice and Ivan Quaroni.
In 2010 exhibits in the Coda museum in Apeldoorn in Holland with other sculptors from Val Gardena. In 2012 he exhibited in Antwerp in Belgium and in this city he had a profitable exhibition activity that continues to this day.
He was invited to the 54° International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia in 2011 to represent the Trentino Alto Adige region. He participated in the Biennale Italy - China at the Royal Villa of Monza and al 1st Annual Collectors Contemporary Collaboration curated by Chang Tsong Zung at the Hong Kong Arts Center.
In the years 2013-2014 begins a new cycle entitled Treehouse; the first exhibition of this cycle is held at the MAC - Museum of Contemporary Art in Lissone (MB) and participate, the same year, to Gherdëina Biennale with a monumental work entitled precisely Treehouse. He is invited by the Ianchelevici Museum in La Louvier in Belgium to exhibit in a personal exhibition, held from March to June of 2015. The same year, which was a very profitable year in terms of exhibition activity, participates in the Örebro Open Art in Sweden and exhibits in the collective exhibition entitled Nature curated by Margherita de Pilati at the Civic Gallery of Trento.
Two years later he is invited to participate in the group exhibition Legno/Leaves/Holz, edited by Gabriele Lorenzoni, always at the Civic Gallery of Trento: the first contemporary sculpture exhibition dedicated to wood in Italy.
In recent years Willy Verginer has focused on the theme of the environment. And Detroit, in Michigan (USA) in 2017, exhibits a large installation at Wasserman Projects. This Detroit exhibition can be considered the best example of the maturation of the environmental issue in Verginer's works. In 2019 participates with two works in the collective Nature in Art at the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (PL). In the same year a new thematic call begins Hopscotch, inspired by the book of the same name by Julio Cortázar. He exhibits the first works of this series in Tel Aviv at the Zemack Contemporary Art gallery and explores the same theme in his personal exhibition at the Studio D’Arte Raffaelli gallery in Trento in 2020.
Between 2021 and 2022 participates in a traveling collective exhibition entitled Gazing of Tranquility. Italian Contemporary Figurative Art Sculpture, in three museums in China: Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou Wuhan Art Museum, Guangdong Museum of Art. Still in the same period he works on a new project entitled The lost garden which is exhibited in the church of San Barnaba in Bondo Trentino. The works of this exhibition are subsequently installed at the AKY Gallery in Taipei.
