The new exhibition of Palazzo Te in Mantua it is an intimate collection that has only 17 works, but which, despite the apparently low number, involve the visitor in an atmosphere of fullness and sublime content.
It is a review that pits a classic painter who loves intense colors like Titian and one of the leading artists of contemporary scane, the German Gerhard Richter, against each other. The exhibition is titled Titian/Gerhard Richter. Heaven on Earth and it is possible to visit it from 7 October 2018 to 6 January 2019. Helmut Friedel, Marsel Grosso and Giovanni Iovane curated it.
The dialogue between the two painters began in 1972 when Richter admired Titian's Annunciation for the first time in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and, starting from a postcard of the painting, he painted five canvases dedicated to Titian's work. During an interview in 1974, Gerhard Richter stated that Titian's paintings imply a quality "that makes a work of art a work of art" and that the work on Titian put him in deep relationship with the art itself. “At first I just wanted to have a wonderful Titian at home” – said Richter.
The exhibition includes the Venetian Annunciation of San Rocco and the Annunciation now conserved in Naples in the Capodimonte Museum by Titian, while by Richter a roundup of very rare abstract paintings to be admired in Italy.
The exhibit depicts a story illustrating the thinking and practice of color, mutual transcendence, the connections between colors in their diversity and, perhaps, also the transparency of vision in the relationship with a mysterious "beyond"; a reflection on the sense of painting that unites Titian and Richter. The last room is dedicated to this instance, in which Richter wanted to present one of his red mirrors, the color of Titian's virgin's dress, bearing witness to a reverberation that crosses time and holds secrets.
The exhibition is organized by the Municipality of Mantua, the International Center of Art and Culture of Palazzo Te and the Civic Museum of Palazzo Te, with the collaboration of the Scuola Grande Arciconfraternita di San Rocco, the National Museum of Capodimonte – Fondo Edifici di Culto , the Kunstmuseum in Basel and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Its staging is designed by Lissoni Associati.
