Promoted and organized by Intesa Sanpaolo in collaboration with the 'Gastone Novelli Archive and curated by Marco Rinaldi, the exhibition is the artist's first anthology organized in the Neapolitan capital.
On display is a nucleus of 36 works including paintings and drawings (from the Gastone Novelli Archive, the Intesa Sanpaolo collection and private collections) which intend to linger on a particularly relevant period in Novelli's creative path. The work of Novelli, born in Vienna in 1925 and died in Milan in 1968, constitutes one of the most significant and original artistic research on the Italian and international panorama of the XNUMXs and XNUMXs.
A refined painter and sculptor, but also a lucid intellectual, Novelli participated in the climate of the neo-avant-garde and linguistic experimentalism which especially involved the poets and writers of the Group 63 in Italy and the literary circles of late surrealism and the French Nouveau Roman. In the years between the foundation of two important magazines – “L'Esperienza Moderna”, together with Achille Perilli in 1957, and “Grammatica”, again together with Perilli and Giuliani and Manganelli in 1964 – Novelli's painting explored the potential of Japanese calligraphy and, immersing herself in the magma of the unconscious, she has arrived at the development of that "magic language" made up of "residues and fragments" of written and visual communication which have their roots in the archetype, in myth, in poetry. Naples now welcomes the work of the artist, who had previously been present in the city with small group exhibitions, such as those set up in 1959 at the Minerva Library-Galleria, in 1963 at the Il Centro Gallery, in 1964 at the Guida Library-Galleria, in 1968 at the S. Carlo Art Gallery. In 1983 a retrospective of his works on paper was held at the Studio Trisorio and in the same venue, in 1986, he participated in a group show.
The recent publication of the first volume of the artist's general catalog has made it possible not only to explore and discover themes that coincide with his numerous literary interests (from Jungian psychology to Buddhism, from medical to erotic literature, from myth to mass culture and to politics), but also revealed the profound topicality of his artistic research, which opens up to the broader sphere of communication. This Novelli exhibition, open free to the public, is also part of Intesa Sanpaolo's initiatives to promote knowledge of contemporary art, such as the opening of the Cantiere del '900 at the Gallerie di Piazza Scala in Milan, and the dossier-exhibitions of the Monographia cycle of which is underway, also in Milan, 1963 and surroundings.
EVERY UNIVERSE IS A POSSIBLE LANGUAGE. Gastone Novelli paintings and drawings (1957-1964)
Naples, GALLERIES OF ITALY – PALAZZO ZEVALLOS STIGLIANO Via Toledo
October 2013 – 12 January 2014
Tuesday-Sunday 10-18; Saturday 10-20
Free ticket
