Graphics/Markus Vallazza

Markus Vallazza

Markus Vallazza is one of the few internationally known South Tyrolean artists, considered one of the most important graphic designers and engravers of the European art scene. Born and raised in Val Gardena, he soon abandoned his valley and his land to find his way as an artist in an autonomous way, giving up, like other important designers and painters, to attend the Academy. 


As a modern Ulysses began to cross Europe both geographically and intellectually: he confronts the greatest spirits of the West, according to existentialist thought is constantly searching for the place of contemporary man and at the same time is on the trail of himself. He always questions the humanistic conception of the world, from which he starts, and in his engravings he themes the conflicting relationship between artist and world. In his works on Oswald von Wolkenstein, Dante or Cervantes, despite his relationship with literature, he is not only interested in illustrations; rather, in the present he wants to revive the great figures of world literature to highlight the solitude of modern man in the cosmos. Vallazza eschews any fixed point because he is constantly searching both as a man and as an artist.

"With Dante Alighieri he overcame the dark forest, crossed Hell full of suffering and created his own Paradise, with Friedrich Nietzsche he investigated his world and his secret obsessions, with Charles Darwin he explored the miracle and the multiplicity of forms of evolution. Markus Vallazza. Designer, engraver, poet, citizen of the world. He has drawn and interpreted countless works of world literature, he has never limited himself to illustrating them. His entire work is similar to a diary. "I draw and write myself," notes Vallazza, "perhaps by doing so I want to show myself and others that I exist. "1 His themes revolve around life and death, love and sensuality. He is not an impartial and objective artist or one who tries to maintain a critical distance. "I try to draw as I am. I mean, I draw what I see, think, feel and dream."

Günther Oberhollenzer

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