The loans of the exhibited works come from some important public institutions such as the Gallery of Modern Art of Palermo, the Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art of Turin, the Mart of Trento and Rovereto, the Florentine Civic Museums, the Capitoline Superintendence of Heritage Cultural and from private collections of institutional stature such as that of Intesa Sanpaolo or from galleries and collectors. The exhibition is curated by Walter Guadagnini.
A journey between Rome, Milan, Turin, Venice, Palermo and Pistoia in a period of extraordinary liveliness and creative richness thanks to the artists who looked to the international scene, to the activity of private galleries, to the art critics who forged relationships between Italy and the rest of the world, to the collectors, magazines and public institutions that have been able to grasp the news and give them the right importance.
From Venice to Rome to the School of Pistoia
The exhibition journey starts from Venice, with the historic Art Biennial of 1964, which hosted four American artists who anticipated Pop Art: Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Jim Dine and Claes Oldenburg. Continue reading above Rome, the main national artistic center of those years, where grouped in the "Scuola di Piazza del Popolo", so called in honor of the Caffè Rosati and the Galleria La Tartaruga located near the square, ri find Mario Schifano, Tano Festa, Franco Angeli, Mimmo Rotella, Mario Ceroli, Pino Pascali, Fabio Mauri, Jannis Kounellis, Titina Maselli, Giosetta Fioroni, Laura Grisi and others, supported by gallery owners such as Plinio de Martiis and Giuseppe Liverani, or by intellectuals such as Alberto Moravia and Goffredo Parise. while the rooms dedicated to Pistoia, present the works of four authors, Roberto Barni, Umberto Buscioni, Adolfo Natalini and Gianni Ruffi, collectively called the “Pistoia School”. That of Pistoia is a unique case in the artistic panorama of the Sixties.
However, the itinerary continues: Turin, Milan, Florence, Bologna, Genoa and Palermo
The itinerary continues Torino, where the Il Punto and Sperone galleries, in collaboration with the Sonnanbend gallery of New York and Paris, introduce the works of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg to Italy. But here we also find Michelangelo Pistoletto, Piero Gilardi, Aldo Mondino, Ugo Nespolo, Pietro Gallina or Anna Comba. Milan, sees the emergence of a version of Pop Art closer to Nouveau Realisme French, and later, also for the action of the Galleria Milano and Studio Marconi, with authors such as Valerio Adami, Lucio Del Pezzo, Emilio Tadini, Enrico Baj. To then reach Florence, Bologna and Genoa and Palermo with authors such as Alberto Moretti, Roberto Malquori, Elio Marchegiani, Concetto Pozzati, Plinio Mesciulam and the musicologist Antonio Titone. The last section of the exhibition is dedicated to two iconic figures of English and American Pop Art: Richard Hamilton and Andy Warhol.
On the cover: Claudio Cintoli, Half a mouth for GD, 1965, oil on canvas, 80,5 x 100 cm. Private collection
