The exhibition opened from March 1 to May 31, 2015, starting from the dense interweaving of facts and characters that gave rise to an important chapter in the history of anarchism in Ticino in the late XNUMXth and early XNUMXth centuries, it is divided into no less than thirteen sections: the symbols of anarchy, the Paris Commune, the city and countryside, work and misery, the emblematic figure of the tramp, strike revolt and repression, the struggle against the powers that be, satire and denunciation, the dream of a new, just and harmonious society.
The exhibition is enclosed in time between the last thirty years of the nineteenth century and the first twenty years of the twentieth century, or rather the chronological extremes of the rich history of Ticino: from Bakunin's stay in Locarno and Lugano (1872-76) to the establishment of the naturist community of Monte Verità in the early years of the century, not forgetting the continuous presence in Ticino of great personalities of Anarchism, such as Elisée Reclus, Carlo Cafiero, Andrea Costa, Errico Malatesta, Pietro Gori, Luigi Fabbri, Eric Mühsam, Raphael Friedeberg, Max Nettlau…
A series of masterpieces of art, between realism and historical avant-garde, accompanies the viewer through the chosen themes. About one hundred works – paintings, sculptures and graphics – from Italian, Swiss and French institutes and collectors, among which the Portrait of Proudhon by Gustave Courbet from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, Le jardinier by Georges Seurat from the Kunsthaus in Zurich, Louise Michel sur les barricades by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen from the Musée du Petit Palais in Geneva, the great studies for Il quarto Stato by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, The orator of the strike by Emilio Longoni, L'anarchiste by Félix Vallotton from the Musée Cantonal des Beaux -Arts of Lausanne, For 80 cents! by Angelo Morbelli from the Borgogna Museum in Vercelli, Le démolisseur by Paul Signac from a private collection in Paris, The Entry of Christ into Brussels on Mardi Gras in 1889 by James Ensor, The Revolt by Luigi Russolo from the Gemeentemuseum of the Aya, the Sale of Angelo Morbelli of the Modern Art Gallery in Milan.
The works constitute the background and evoke the intense atmosphere of an extremely restless and conflictual period, bearing witness to the artist's profound interest in the so-called – at the time – “social question”. All of them, in every part of the world, were affected: realists and symbolists, neo-impressionists and pointillists, medievalists/neo-gothics and futurists, and many of them professed anarchist faith.
The exhibition is accompanied by a very rich historical material: letters, documents, books, photos, films, real alter ego of the artistic part; a particular exhibition style suggests games of cross-references between art and history, between formal research and social commitment.
The exhibition scheduled at the Palazzo delle Paure in Lecco is entirely dedicated to the fascinating chapter of denunciation and satire, through a myriad of publications. Between the end of the XNUMXth century and the beginning of the XNUMXth century, a grandiose flowering of newspapers and magazines was known throughout Europe, the means of diffusion par excellence of anarchist ideas.
The drawing of denunciation and satire thus becomes a formidable weapon of struggle in the hands of great illustrators such as Vallotton, Steinlen, Kupka, Grandjuan, Jossot, Scalarini, Galantara, de Camara, Masereel, Schrimpf, Man Ray, who publish their drawings on magazines that have become legendary: Le Père Peinard, l'Assiette au beurre, La Feuille, La Scarpa nera, L'Asino, Mother Earth, Aktion, Die freie Strasse.
A turbulent period, of great disparities and social injustices, which will lead to the First World War: justice, the church, the army form that "triad of evil" against which the scathing satire of extraordinary engagés artists is hurled.
