Alfred Nobel, known as the creator of the prize of the same name, was also and above all the inventor of dynamite, colleague and friend of Ascanio Sobrero, the Turin chemist who first synthesized nitroglycerin. At the end of the XNUMXth century, after encountering various difficulties in many northern European countries, he arrived in Italy to install his own explosives production plants, in partnership with the Società Italiana Prodotti Explodenti (SIPE).
From these elements begins a compelling research into the history and paradoxes of one of the most complex figures of our time, who has left indelible traces on the Italian territory.
On show is a selection of around 50 photos and documentation on the Sipe-Nobel sites in Italy, with an in-depth look at the Spilamberto site in the province of Modena. Pettena's photographic work highlights the compositional value given by the volumes of industrial architecture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and their characteristics of integration into the territory, often obtained through a sort of camouflage with the vegetation, above all to avoid aerial bombardments.
Michal Grochowiak – from the “Silence” series, Untitled (Ola), 2007
It continues with “Memory finally. Art in Poland: 1989-2015” (Palazzina dei Giardini, 21 March-7 June 2015), curated by Marinella Paderni, in collaboration with the Polish Cultural Institute in Rome.
25 years after democratic independence, Poland has become the cradle of an unprecedented cultural renaissance, humus of those historical instances that shaped Europe of the last century, amidst traumas, removals and reconstructions. The thirteen selected authors – on the basis of three generations of Polish artists born between the end of the XNUMXs and the end of the XNUMXs – present photographs, paintings, collages, performances, sculptures, drawings, installations and videos. The exhibition recounts the delicate passage between the past and the future experienced by the country, shows the gap between cultural heritage and the invention of a new art, and reveals an autonomous aesthetic, the full expression of today's post-socialist Poland.
The search for an identity in the present, which also represents the promise of the future, is the leitmotiv of the exhibition: "Memory at last", the title of a poem written by Wislawa Szymborska, Polish writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996.
The artists present in the exhibition: Pawel Althamer (1967), Miroslaw Balka (1958), Michal Budny (1976), Michal Grochowiak (1977), Nicolas Grospierre (1975), Paulina Olowska (1976), Slavs and Tatars (Kasia Korczak, 1976 and Payam Sharifi, 1976), Monika Sosnowska (1972), Aleksandra Waliszewska (1976), Ewa Axelrad (1984), Anna Molska (1983), Agnieska Polska (1985), Jakub Woynarowski (1982).
Art Kane, The Who, 1968
On June 25th, again at the Palazzina dei Giardini, the exhibition dedicated to Art Kane, curated by Guido Harari and Marco Pierini, will open until September 20th 2015. Made in collaboration with the Solares Fondazione delle Arti of Parma, the exhibition – the first in an Italian museum dedicated to the great New York photographer (1925-1995) – collects around a hundred color and black and white photographs that have contributed to shaping the visual imagination of the second half of the twentieth century. A large part will be dedicated to portraits and "stage photos" of rock stars (from Frank Zappa to Jim Morrison, from the Rolling Stones to the Who, immortalized wrapped up in the Union Jack), a section no less consistent with fashion and news, fixed with look so original as to conquer the covers of the most prestigious international magazines.
Daniel Spoerri, Poubelle, last course of the Palindromisches Diner (“Palindrome Dinner”); marzipan waste bin, made by master pastry chef Wolfgang Philipp, Graz
With the exhibition “Daniel Spoerri. Eat Art in Transformation” (Palazzina dei Giardini and Palazzo Santa Margherita, 10 October-10 January 2016) concludes the 2015 exhibition program. Curated by Susanne Bieri, Antonio d'Avossa, Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini, created and co-produced with the max museo di Chiasso, the extensive retrospective dedicated to Daniel Spoerri, the artist who coined Eat Art in 1967, is closely linked to the theme of Expo 2015.
The exhibited works range from the first period of experimentation linked to the magazine “Matérial” (1955–1961), then to kinetic multiples, and then to the famous tableaux-pièges, assemblages of everyday objects glued to supports and reversed in orientation, up to to sculpture and research in the graphic field, all enriched by important archival documents.
Through the poetics of Spoerri, the exhibition illustrates humanity's constant attraction towards the epochal theme of food, seen as a fundamental interface between art and life. On display will be the artist's recipes, his notes and menus starting from the Spoerri restaurant in Dusseldorf (1968) up to the Santa Marta Bistrot, Mudima foundation, Milan 2014.
An entire room will also be dedicated to Daniel Spoerri's graphics, exhibited and studied in a significant way for the first time within his vast artistic production. Thanks to letters and documents, Spoerri's relationships with contemporary artists will also be highlighted: Jean Tinguely, known in Basel as early as 1950, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Meret Oppenheim, Emmet Williams, Dieter Roth, Roland Topor, Robert Filliou Ben Vautier. The works will come from the artist's collection, from the National Library of Bern which houses the Spoerrri archive and from important European collectors.
As for the Collection, a project launched in 2011 by the Galleria Civica di Modena aimed at regularly displaying its heritage, will begin on 7 February with "The Cinema Show", an installation curated by Daniele De Luigi and Marco Pierini hosted in the main hall at Palazzo Santa Margherita until 7 June 2015.
The imagery of cinema is very present in the photographic collection of the Civic Gallery, which draws largely from the Franco Fontana fund, and embraces almost the entire twentieth century, from the photos of Anton Giulio Bragaglia taken on the set of his "Thaïs" in 1917, up to close-ups of famous Italian actors and directors made by Pino Settanni in the XNUMXs. Stage photos, shots that testify to public life and capture private moments of performers and conductors, posed portraits of divas and stars are the thematic areas addressed by the review, which sees among the protagonists Roberto Benigni, Ingrid Bergman, Tony Curtis, Gérard Depardieu, Marlene Dietrich, Federico Fellini, John Houston, Klaus Kinski, Mario Monicelli, Marilyn Monroe, Totò.
Among the photographers: Philippe Antonello, Anton Giulio Bragaglia, Jean-François Bouret, Chico De Luigi, Franco Fontana, David Gamble, Pino Guidolotti, Horst Horst P. (Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann), Eric Lessing, Gina Lollobrigida, Luciana Mulas, Ugo Mulas, Gabriele Pagnini, Federico Patellani, John Phillips, Roger Pic, Pierluigi Praturlon, Gianfranco Salis, Enrica Scalfari, Tazio Secchiaroli, Pino Settanni, Angelo Turetta, Leigh Wiener.
Mauro Reggiani, Geometric Composition, 1968, Civic Gallery of Modena
In the upper rooms of the Palazzo from 7 February to 5 April 2015 it will be possible to visit “The variant and the rule. Works on paper between concrete art, minimalism and analytical painting". This exhibition, curated by Serena Goldoni and Marco Pierini, takes account of the concrete, geometric, minimal and analytical researches that go from the years immediately following the Second World War up to the early 2014s, suggesting the presence of an ideal diachronic thread between yet so different. It is proposed as a logical continuation of the exhibition dedicated in 1999 to the Informal in Italy, focusing on a similar period (just pushed a little forward) but facing a totally different climate and a wider geography, this time not limited to Italy alone . Also in this case, the papers held by the Modena Civic Gallery will be accompanied by the graphics from the Collection of Don Casimiro Bettelli, granted on loan to the Gallery by the Modenese Curia in XNUMX.
Among the artists we mention: Getulio Alviani, Max Bill, Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Castellani, Marco Gastini, Giorgio Griffa, Sol LeWitt, Francesco Lo Savio, Brice Marden, François Morellet, Mario Nigro, Claudio Olivieri, Mauro Reggiani, Turi Simeti, Giuseppe Uncini, Claudio Verna, Luigi Veronesi.
Josep Ginestar, Todos buscamos, 2010, Civic Gallery of Modena
From 18 April to 7 June 2015 the same rooms open to the New Acquisitions of the Civic Gallery of Modena.
In the last three years, more than 500 works have been included in the drawing and photography collections, always free of charge, by donation from artists or collectors, or on loan. The installation, curated by Gabriella Roganti and Marco Pierini, takes account of the new acquisitions of drawings (Aldo Bandinelli, Vittorio Corsini, Gianfranco Ferroni, Josep Ginestar, Mario Giovanardi, Abel Herrero, Giuseppe Maraniello, Roberto Paci Dalò, Nakis Panayotidis, Moe Yoshida) and photographs (among others Elina Brotherus, Bruno Cattani, Franco Fontana, Guido Harari, Diego Zuelli).
A selection of the 114 engravings by Italian authors donated in 2013 by the Association for the dissemination of artistic work of Modena and a selection of the numerous drawings that have recently become part of the Collection will also be presented.
The Civic Gallery of Modena, during 2015, will continue the publication of the "civic 103" magazine, also as a webApp, and will organize the usual series of meetings, readings, conferences, concerts, shows and presentations, sometimes in conjunction with regional events, national or international enhancement and promotion of museums (“Contemporary Day”, “Museums to Taste”, “Night of Museums”, “European Music Festival”, “Festivalfilosofia” and so on).
