Art and furnishings in one hundred years of Italian style. Fondazione Cosmit Eventi, in collaboration with the City Council of Milan – Department of Culture, celebrates a century of great Italian tradition with an exhibition of paintings, sculpture, furniture and objects from 1900 to today.
From 18th April – for the duration of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2007– and until 1st July, the rooms of the Palazzo Reale will provide a glimpse of the atmosphere and taste that animated and inspired the great Italian culture of art and design during the last century right up to the present day: the Divisionist and Futurist painters, the great 20th century masters and the Neoavantgarde movement of the Seventies, the protagonists of Postmodernism during the Eighties and the burgeoning talents now recognised at international level. Works by architects and designer will be exhibited alongside the paintings and installations.
The visitor will find himself plunged into a world in which the reality as represented by the canvasses of Mario Sironi, Filippo de Pisis, Felice Casorati and Giorgio de Chirico frequently corresponds to that of the furniture and “interiors” designed and created by Bugatti, Gio Ponti, Piacentini; Sant’Elia’s visionary projects and Giacomo Balla’s pieces of furniture, Portaluppi’s splendid desk, a beautifully constructed cupboard by Ulrich that contains d’Annunzio’s even more beautifully constructed wardrobe; not to mention Gualino and Giuseppe Pagano’s Protorationalist offices, a 1935 Modernist study of Gio Ponti, Spatialist lamps by the Castiglioni brothers and Gino Sarfatti, a Reductionist room with “mirrored” furnishings by Nanda Vigo, Enzo Mari’s unpretentious, self-built furniture, the adventure of the Eighties house leading right on up to the younger generations, where art often proves to coincide with the architectural space and the space of a life lived, as in works by Loris Cecchini and Flavio Favelli, Vedovamazzei and Massimo Bartolini or Michelangelo Pistoletto (whose work Love Difference, the huge Multiculturalist table that characterises the third millennium and sets new boundaries for confrontation and dialogue between art, architecture and design, between East and West).
Musical interludes, evocative of Italian life from the early 20th century to today, will provide the background to the exhibition.
Visitors will be greeted by the strains of Gianni Schicchi’s aria “O My Beloved Father” by Puccini (which provided the inspiration for the soundtrack to James Ivory’s film “A Room With a View”): and Respigh’si orchestral colours sweep over Previati’s Divisionism, Salvatore Sciarrino’s brusque inflections resonate with Arte Povera, a young Mina sings along to Pop Art, while the Lescano Trio’s Maramao melds with works by Mafai and Badodi. Azio Corghi’s eccentric compositions and divertissements play in the new millennium and a Vivaldian provocation sweeps out of the 18th century and into Transavantgarde. These are followed by Casella and Futurism, Ghedini and Metaphysics, Malipiero and the 20th century, Luigi Nono and the Gruppo degli Otto, Berio and Spatialism, Fabrizio De Andrè and finally, in the last room, Michelangelo Pistoletto.
Two editions of the catalogue, published by Skira both in Italian and in English, will be printed: the first will contain contributions from Amerigo Daveri, Manolo De Giorgi, Rachele Ferrario, Claudia Gian Ferrari, Maria Paola Maino and Luigi Settembrini; the second edition will be printed once the exhibition is in full swing, providing a photographic record.
Room With a View
Art and Interiors in Italy 1900-2000
Milan, Palazzo Reale, 18th April – 1st July
Concept and General Curator: Luigi Settembrini
Curator: Claudia Gian Ferrari
Planning Curator: Manolo De Giorgi in collaboration with Maria Paola Maino
Artistic Directors: Rachele Ferrario and Gherardo Frassa
Exhibition Design: Pierluigi Cerri
Executive Production: Fondazione Solares
Music: Guido Casali, Amerigo Daveri, Piero Maranghi together with Classica TV
Lighting: Pollice Illuminazione
Catalogue: Skira
text: cosmit
