"All you need is Love” intends to give an account – for the first time in Italy – of the results of John Lennon's multifaceted talent, only indirectly considered on this occasion in his famous role as a musician, and investigated instead as a visual artist and actor.
Naturally gifted for drawing, Lennon studied (with mixed results) at the prestigious Liverpool College of Art and never abandoned the habit of capturing ideas, thoughts and fantasies with quick sketches.
Of a real artistic activity, however, one can only speak starting from the encounter with Yoko Ono, with which he will make some videos between the end of the Sixties and the beginning of the Seventies – “Smile”, “Rape”, “Fly”, “Up Your Legs” – all of them present in the Modena exhibition.
Of extraordinary interest, and of great relevance to "Love", the theme of this year's festivalfilosofia, the folder of 14 lithographs entitled "Bag One", designed by John as a wedding present for Yoko on the occasion of their marriage in 1969. The exchange of rings, the famous bed-in for peace in Amsterdam, the honeymoon, moments of their intimacy are the subjects chosen by Lennon for this series of images characterized by a fresh, agile, ironic line. "Bag One" was exhibited for the first time on 15 January 1970 at the London Arts Gallery and immediately confiscated by Scotland Yard due to the high rate of eroticism with which the prints were permeated.
If “A Hard Day's Night” is excluded, “Help!” and “Magical Mystery Tour”, made together with the other three Beatles, Richard Lester's satirical and anti-militarist comedy “How I Won the War” (1967) remains the only film starring Lennon, here as Private Gripweed. John appears for the first time with round glasses, a look that will remain iconic for all the years to come.
On display are all the playbills and posters created with effervescent graphic fantasy for its launch in Italy, as well as other iconographic and editorial materials dedicated to it.
A John Lennon brilliant author of calembour, puns puns, surreal stories, nonsense poems, the space dedicated to literature in the house organ of the “civico 103” Gallery will be reserved – a special issue dedicated to the exhibition – with the story in verse “Toy Boy” included in the three official books written by Lennon and never translated into Italian so far.
Finally, the famous portrait of Yoko Ono and John Lennon taken by Annie Leibovitz in 1980 a few hours after the assassination of the former Beatle, which is part of the Photography collection of the Modena Civic Gallery, is also on display.
The exhibition will remain open to the public until Sunday 20 October.
Entry is free
Palazzo Santa Margherita, large hall, corso Canalgrande 103, Modena
