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3/2/2005

Futurism

State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

THE NOVECENTO. ABSTRACTION.
ITALIAN ART OF THE 20TH CENTURY

The State Hermitage Museum is proud to present the unprecedented exhibition “Futurism. The Novecento. Abstraction. Italian art of the 20th century”. This is the first exhibition ever held in Russia of Italian art of the 20th century which will be on display from 4 February to 10 April, 2005, at the Nicholas Hall, the Winter Palace.

The show has been organized by The State Hermitage Museum and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, MART, in collaboration with the Civiche Raccolte d’Arte of Milan, CIMAC, and the Gallery d’Arte Moderna of Turin. The show is under the patronage of the Italian Foreign Ministry.

The exhibition presents some eighty paintings and sculptures, the majority of which from the permanent collections of the three museums promoting the show.

In chronological order, the great protagonists and many of the most significant works of Italian art from the first fifty years of the last century will be on show in The State Hermitage Museum: from Balla to Boccioni, from Depero to Severini; from Carra and Morandi to de Chirico, Casorati, Campigli, Sinori, Savinio, up to Burri, Fontana and Manzoni. Beginning with the Futurist avant-garde the exhibition will continue through Metaphysical paintings, Primitivism, the Novecento, and will arrive, after investigating the anti-Novecento experiences of the Corrente and the School of Rome, at the early part of the fifties and the linguistic-narrative annulment of Lucio Fontana’s spatial concepts.

The show begins with a painting by Boccioni, Officine a porta pomana, (1909), a work that expresses the new spirit of the “changing city” and that anticipated Marinetti’s theories and the Futurists’ love for modernity. This acts as a kind of presentation of the show and is genuinely 1emblematic of the feelings which at the beginning of the century were to be followed by the great Futurist movement. A careful selection of paintings presents Futurism from its earliest manifestations with three splendid canvases by Boccioni from the CIMAC collection in Milan, a painting by Severini, some canvases by Balla and Soffici, and the priceless experiments of Carlo Carra.

During the second half of the first decade, the insistence on a “Return to Order” was marked by such iconic paintings for Italian art history as La matinee angoissante by de Chirico, (1912), and the rare Natura morta (1918) by Giorgio Morandi, which is from the Hermitage collection.

The central figure in Italian Primitivism was Carlo Carra, represented by the archaic aspect of such paintings as Fanciullo prodigio (1915) and La Carrozzella (1916). The typically Italian classicism of the 1920s, which was also the precursor of such ideas in the rest of Europe, is represented by the artists of the Novecento movement, who took on the mantle of so-called Magic Realism painting. This, for example, is the case of Felice Casorati, shown here by two canvases: L’arresa, (1921), and his portrait Silvana Cenni (1922), and of Arturo Martini with his melancholy terracotta Il Poeta Cecov, (1922).

Examples of a more solid kind of classicism are the works of Marussig; an Etruscan kind of archaism is to be seen in the Zingari and the Costruttori (928) by Campigli, and then there are the works of Funi, Oppi, and the great Mario Sironi whose statuesque Allieva (1924), is one of the most enigmatic figures of 20th century Italian painting. During the Fascist period a few voices were raised against the general “Return to Order” and these can be verified in the works of Mafai, Morandi, and the young Guttuso. For Morandi is mounted a special tribute with some ten works and will prove our thesis that he was a transitional figure in the pre- and post-war periods: Morandi was an isolated figure but at the same time, someone able to absorb all the influences of European art.

The exhibition closes with the section Tabula rasa devoted to three protagonists of the post-war period: Fontana, Burri, and Manzoni. This is an important chapter for understanding what has happened in Italy since 1945 and which the Hermitage, in 2007, proposes to investigate in greater depth. The works on show all come from the three foundations concerned with the heritage of each artist: for Fontana La fine di Dio, (1963), from the Fontana Foundation in Milan; for Manzoni Achrome, (1959), from the Piero Manzoni Archive in Milan; for Burri Nero cretto, (1974), belonging to the Burri Foundation in Citta di Castello.

The exhibition’s curators are Dr. Albert Kostenevich, Chief curator, Department of the Western European Art, The State Hermitage Museum, and Gabriella Belli, Director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, MART.

A variety of programs and educational resources will be scheduled in conjunction with the exhibition. These will include an International Symposium organized by The State Hermitage Museum, in collaboration with the Institute of Italian Culture, and the General Consulate of the Italian Republic, St. Petersburg. The symposium will take place on 8-9 February, 2005, at the Hermitage Theatre. Entrance to the symposium is free no tickets or reservation are required. The Web site of The Hermitage (www.hermitagemuseum.org) will feature the exhibition.

The exhibition is accompanied by the lavishly illustrated catalogue featuring essays by Italian scholars and experts, published by Skira and thanks to Garda Cartiere. Each work on show will have a detailed critical analysis and there will be a complete biography for each artist. The introductory essay aims to offer the Russian reader a brief but profound guide to Italian art in the first fifty years of the 20th century.

Press preview: 4 February, 2005, at 1.00 p.m., the Hermitage Theatre

For further information and images, please contact:

Lena Getmanskaya
Press Manager
The State Hermitage Museum
Tel.: +7 (812) 110-9502;
Fax: + 7 (812) 312 1567

Luca Melchionna
MART, Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto
Tel.: +39 0464 454127
Fax: +39 0464 430827
e-mail: press@mart.trento.it

Exhibition location: The State Hermitage Museum - Nicholas Hall, The Winter Palace - St. Petersburg

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