Vittore Bocchetta - Workshop Exhibition

“I can never do just one thing. I have to do at least three things. An hour of doing nothing feels to me like having to die.”

Vittore Bocchetta was a literature professor, author, artist, resistance fighter, concentration camp prisoner, survivor, and immigrant. A seeker, driven forward—a person who remained in constant motion throughout his life.

Bocchetta was born on November 15, 1918, in Sassari on the island of Sardinia. At the age of 14, he moved with his family to Verona. As a student, he took part in the resistance against the fascist regime of Mussolini and the German occupation beginning in 1943. A year later, he was arrested and deported via Bolzano to the Flossenbürg sub camp in Hersbruck. When the camp was evacuated in March 1945, Bocchetta managed to escape and hide in a camp for British prisoners of war. After the war, he initially returned to Italy, but in 1948 he emigrated to South America and later to the United States. In 1992, Bocchetta returned to Verona, where he died on February 18, 2021.

Vittore Bocchetta began his artistic career in the 1950s as a sculptor. His work includes texts and theatrical productions, as well as sculptures, drawings, collages, and paintings. He often blurred the boundaries between these genres, placing them in dialogue with one another and thereby creating his distinctive style.

Most of the drawings shown here were created in 1986 during a stay in Verona, when Bocchetta was also working on his autobiography. The drawings are therefore closely connected to the process of remembering. At the same time, Bocchetta does not limit himself to depicting personal biographical episodes. The figures in his paintings and sculptures become symbols of the human condition: they explore loneliness and isolation, as well as human relationships and connection.

It is precisely this quality that gives his work a timeless character and opens up an immediate, personal point of access for viewers.