“Art is the creation of an evocative magic,” Baudelaire once said, and to experience it for yourself, here is a calendar of fascinating exhibitions in Italian cities as well as in London, Paris and Madrid.
Art as a creator of magic: Charles Baudelaire's definition captures well the great power and importance that every art form holds in society and in each of our lives. Visiting exhibitions can be a way to relax, learn and have fun, and with that in mind we propose a possible calendar of events spanning painting to photography, cinema to archaeology. Exhibitions that also become opportunities to discover the beautiful Italian cities and some European capitals. Our recommendations for 12 months of beauty and evocative experiences.
A photographer, a journalist and a woman we greatly admire and often recommend following: Letizia Battaglia is on show at the Magazzini fotografici in Naples, while she is still on display in Milan too, at Palazzo Reale (until 19 January 2020) — two opportunities, then, to admire photographs of outstanding quality, but above all to explore the political and cultural history of a part of Italy marked by the Mafia and much else besides.
Read also: Letizia Battaglia. Voglio ritrarre le donne comuni, simboli di vita e di bellezza
Letizia personally selected from her archive of vintage prints a collection of shots that represent a cross-section of her photographic research. The exhibition was conceived exclusively to bring to Naples historic images, photojournalism and portraits that recount the years of a difficult Palermo, through the intimate, deep and emotionally charged gaze of a photographer capable of documenting the effects of the Mafia's actions on society, as well as capturing the deep-rooted problems of the female condition, through the faces of the women and girls she portrayed. For lovers of photojournalism.
Exhibitions tell the story of every art form, cinema included, and in Italy one of the greatest figures in the world of film is undoubtedly Sergio Leone who, 30 years after his death and 90 years after his birth, is being celebrated in Rome at the Ara Pacis with this exhibition. The itinerary on offer explores the boundless universe of a director whose roots run deep in his own family tradition: not everyone may know, in fact, that his father, a director during the golden age of Italian silent cinema, chose the pseudonym Roberto Roberti, and Sergio paid him a knowing nod by in turn signing Per un pugno di dollari with the anglophone pseudonym Bob Robertson. This is just one of the many curious facts to be discovered when visiting this exhibition, which takes us inside the life and career of an absolute icon.
The exhibition at the Centro italiano per la fotografia tells the story of our past and the roots of our present, as well as the evolution of Italian and international photography over an entire three decades, through the stories and accounts concealed in the most significant images of the Collezione Bertero — a collection unique in Italy for the originality of its approach and the quality of the photographs it contains. From the more than two thousand images that make up the collection, the curators have selected over two hundred, produced by around fifty photographers from all over the world: among the many, the names of Bruno Barbey, Gabriele Basilico, Gianni Berengo Gardin, Robert Capa, Lisetta Carmi, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Mario Cattaneo, Carla Cerati, Mario Cresci, Mario De Biasi, Mario Dondero, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Luigi Ghirri, Mario Giacomelli, Jan Groover, Mimmo Jodice, William Klein, Herbert List, Duane Michals, Ugo Mulas, Ruth Orkin, Federico Patellani, Ferdinando Scianna, Franco Vimercati and Michele Zaza stand out. In short: the very best of this art form in one single, essential exhibition.
For archaeology enthusiasts this is an unmissable appointment: the exhibition Etruschi. Viaggio nelle terre dei Rasna, open from 7 December 2019 to 24 May 2020, takes visitors on a journey through the lands of the Etruscans and shows how there is not a single Etruria, but multiple territories that produced different outcomes in terms of settlement, urbanisation, management and economic models across space and time, all nonetheless under the aegis of a single culture: the Etruscan. This is an ambitious exhibition project dedicated to Etruscan civilisation, bringing together around 1,400 objects from 60 Italian and international museums and institutions, in dialogue with the museum's own exceptionally rich Etruscan collection. A unique opportunity to rediscover the Etruscans through their wonderful art.
In 2020 it will have been 500 years since the death of Raffaello Sanzio, a master who will be fittingly celebrated thanks in particular to an exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome, about which very little is currently known but which promises to be an unmissable event for anyone who loves the painter who became the symbol of the Renaissance, born in Urbino. It is expected to be open from 5 March to 14 June 2020, and will be organised in collaboration with the Uffizi in Florence, which will provide the central core of works. The list has not yet been announced, but loans from the Florentine museum will include the self-portrait of 1504–06 (painted when he was just over 20 years old), a pair of portraits of Agnolo and Maddalena Doni (1504–07) and the "Madonna del cardellino" (c. 1506). Timeless art.
In Brescia the focus is on the female figure, with an exhibition dedicated to the representation of women in art from the sixteenth century through to the Belle Époque. Through a selection of around a hundred works from prestigious museums, galleries and private collections, it will be possible to explore this fascinating theme from every angle, with the aim of demonstrating how women have always held a central role in the history of Italian art. Indeed, the greatest Renaissance, Baroque and nineteenth-century painters — from Raphael to Titian, from Caravaggio to Tiepolo, from Zandomeneghi to De Nittis through to Boldini — dedicated memorable portraits to noblewomen, aristocrats and working-class women, in which they brought out personality, elegance, character, sensuality and the most subtle nuances of the feminine world. Worth visiting because, thanks to collaboration with the Fondazione Marcegaglia Onlus, through dedicated wall panels it will be possible to explore certain highly topical social and media issues such as gender inequality, women in the workplace, domestic violence, social marginalisation and gender quotas.
Details about this exhibition are still scarce, but it will take place in spring at the Museo del Novecento, which had already dedicated conferences to the Sardinian artist this year — on the centenary of Lai's birth. Maria Lai, born at the end of the First World War, lived through the entire century and became a leading figure in relational art that is at once strongly influenced by her Sardinian origins and the culture of the island, yet also profoundly modern and avant-garde. To get to know the works and life of this grande dame of art more fully, one can visit her hometown of Ulassai, La stazione dell'arte, the contemporary art museum that houses 150 of her works. A journey to discover a unique and inimitable artistic language.
Our contemporary art recommendation takes us to Florence to discover the works of Tomás Saraceno, an Argentine artist born in 1973, whose work can be defined as a continuous investigation at the intersection of art, architecture, biology, astrophysics and engineering. His suspended sculptures, collective projects and interactive installations propose and explore new sustainable ways of experiencing the reality that surrounds us. His art engages the public in imaginative and participatory experiences to collectively rethink the way we inhabit the world, beyond a purely human perspective. This is his largest project ever realised in Italy, for which the artist will transform Palazzo Strozzi into a new space by bringing together celebrated existing works and a major new site-specific production. For those who love to be surprised and to experiment.
Both exhibitions we recommend visiting in Milan feature women artists of great stature who expressed themselves across different disciplines, making significant contributions not only within their respective fields but also in society at large. At Mudec Photo, the space within the Museo delle culture dedicated to photography, the works on show will be photographs by Tina Modotti