William N. Copley

William N. Copley (1919-96) embodies the figure of the original, eclectic self-taught artist, thanks to his work as a journalist, editor, art dealer and collector. The two exhibitions, curated by Germano Celant and Toby Kamps, as well as the related catalogue, retrace the entire career of the artist - started in Hollywood in the 1940s, developed in Paris and subsequently spanned across Europe and the United States - and recall the evolution of his style and pictorial experimentation. Inspired by Surrealism, by the cartoon imagery and by American folk culture, the artist explored recurring subjects such as pornography, patriotism, and the unexpected potential of everyday objects with humor and intelligence.
Copley's career was independent without being isolated, an unconventional bridge spanning two continents. In his artworks, eroticism is at once joyful, irreverent and socially engaged. The skill and irony with which Copley-or CPLY, as he usually signed his works- inserted political messages in pictures that appear at first glance to be just sexual, made him a point of encounter between artistic movements that were geographically and idealistically far from one another, from Surrealism to Pop Art and also to Conceptual Art.