Great exhibition dedicated to Antonio Ligabue (1899-1965), one of the most brilliant and original authors of the Italian twentieth century will be held in Parma, Palazzo Tarasconi from 2 April to 27 December 2020.
The itinerary also includes a section with 15 plastic works by Michele Vitaloni (Milan, 1967) who shares with Ligabue a particular empathy towards the natural and animal world.
The exhibition, curated by Augusto Agosta Tota, Marzio Dall'Acqua and Vittorio Sgarbi, organized by the Antonio Ligabue Study Center and Archive of Parma, promoted by the Antonio Ligabue Archive Foundation of Parma, included in the calendar of initiatives for Parma 2020 Italian Capital of Culture, presents 85 paintings and 4 sculptures by Ligabue, able to analyze the themes that have most characterized his artistic parable, from self-portraits, to landscapes, to wild and domestic animals.
Starting from the self-portraits, which constitute a perennial and constant human condition of anguish, desolation and bewilderment; his face expresses pain, fatigue, pain of living; every relationship with the world seems to have been severed forever, almost as if the artist could now only tell, for one last time, the tragedy of a face and a gaze, which doesn't care to see the things around it, but that asks, at least once, to be looked at.
“There is the inner world that shows itself in his self-portraits – he says Vittorio Sgarbi – Ligabue talks to himself, wonders and asks us something. Also in this case the discomfort is evident. Ligabue hits his head with a stone, tries to drive away evil spirits. The self-portrait is not a form of narcissism, it expresses the need to understand each other better, in a process of self-analysis. The self-portrait is the image of malaise, and Ligabue is keen to make it known”.
An important nucleus of works is dedicated to the natural world, in particular to the animal kingdom; and to that of the lower Po valley, set in a daily life of hard work in the fields (as in the canvas Plowing from 1961), or simple rural life (as in the painting Courtyard of 1930), but also and above all to the wild one, where the protagonists are tigers, lions, leopards, hyenas, which Ligabue first studied on the pages of books and then painted, identifying himself with them to the point of assuming their attitudes: Ligabue, in fact, it roared frightfully and imitated the movements in the act of biting the prey. Exemplary in this regard are some works exhibited in Parma, such as Leopard with buffalo and hyena (1928) Tiger attacked by snake (1953) King of the forest (1959) Black Widow (1951)
“The animals that Ligabue sees in the forest – Vittorio Sgarbi continues – are symbols of strength, of energy, emblems of a desire for freedom, for redemption. Ligabue, a humiliated and marginalized man, as a painter affirms himself and wins through the glorious power of the animal. The tiger dominates the forest, his aggressiveness is victorious, but his victory is danger, it is the warlike dimension of humanity. Ligabue talks about himself, defines his world, seen and imagined, and in any case real. And if he talks about himself, he doesn't talk to himself because he doesn't have to communicate anything to himself ”.
Ligabue's legacy goes as far as the contemporary. The exhibition, in fact, gives an account of a group of works by Michele Vitaloni, a leading representative of the wildlife art and sculptural hyperrealism. As the Toni, Vitaloni is attracted by the charm of the wild animal figure, by the elegance of their bodies which reflect the wild side of human nature. Among the vaults of the cellars of Palazzo Tarasconi, 15 large sculptures will compete with Ligabue's masterpieces, narrating the urgency of that energy of the animal world that belongs to all human beings.
“At Palazzo Tarasconi in Parma – writes Sgarbi in the exhibition catalog – the clash takes place between Antonio Ligabue, present and alive in front of us, and Michele Vitaloni. Vitaloni was born two years after Ligabue's death. Today, Augusto Agosta Tota, whoever lived long enough to have seen them both active, places them side by side and discovers affinities which are not only determined by the identity of the subjects, above all wild animals, lions, tigers, leopards, but by energy, animation, life. It follows, in the reasoned comparison, that Ligabue's animals are alive, not painted. Vitaloni reproduces them to enhance their beauty.”
Cover image: Antonio Ligabue, Black Widow, 1951, oil on hardboard, 102×134 cm
