The 2023 exhibition calendar is becoming increasingly packed and rich with events.
Today we present five of the exhibitions that will accompany us in the coming months around Italy.
How does a story come to life? Disney at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa until April 2, 2023
Palazzo Ducale di Genova hosts until April 2, 2023, “Disney. The Art of Telling Timeless Stories”. The exhibition arrives in Liguria after being at the Mudec in Milan and at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome.
The journey tells visitors about the masterpieces born from the imagination of Walt Disney, connecting the stories to the myths, medieval legends, folklore, fables, and fairy tales that inspired them. These correspond to the thematic sections of the exhibition, where the most famous stories that inspired Disney films are presented in a narrative key through the display of preparatory sketches focused on the exploration of characters, settings, and narrative plots.
In the exhibition, great attention is given to animation, an immediate artistic medium for storytelling. Walt Disney and his collaborators worked on these themes, giving human traits and emotions to the animals and objects of the fairy tales, creating over the years universally known characters such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, Robin Hood, The Sword in the Stone, The Three Little Pigs, Hercules, Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, up to Frozen 2 – The Secret of Arendelle.
Turning Pain into Power at Kunst Merano Arte until January 29, 2023
The exhibition TURNING PAIN INTO POWER , hosted by Kunst Merano Merano Arte from October 15, 2022, to January 29, 2023, emphasizes the potential of art in awakening and increasing awareness of social and political injustices. The collective presents a selection of artists who confront various forms of inequity through strong, conscious, and creative strategies, addressing themes such as racism, gender violence, and the fight against discrimination, including that directed against the LGBTQIA+ community.
The exhibition opens with the motto “I won’t shut up”, by Monica Bonvicini: the work refers to freedom of expression almost as a duty to “speak up” and not silently accept injustices.
In the exhibition, beyond words, other expressive forms can also become signs of collective resistance. Giuseppe Stampone captures a historical moment imprinted in our collective memory by reproducing it with a pen: in 1968, during the award ceremony at the Mexico City Olympics, African American athlete Tommie Smith raises his fist proposing the salute of the Black Power movement, a sign against the discrimination of the African American population. Nearly fifty years later, the gesture of kneeling proposed by many athletes around the world as an act of solidarity, in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement, connects to these strategies of peaceful protest.
New Trends, Leonardo Dudreville and the Avant-Garde of the 2010s at the Fondazione Ragghianti in Lucca until January 8, 2023
The Fondazione Ragghianti exhibits from October 15, 2022, to January 8, 2023, the exhibition NEW TRENDS. Leonardo Dudreville and the Avant-Garde of the 2010s.
The exhibition is dedicated to the group Nuove Tendenze founded in Milano in 1913 by the critic Ugo Nebbia and the artist Leonardo Dudreville.
The Nuove Tendenze movement is characterized by an absolute experimental freedom. The exhibition offers a reading within the context of international avant-gardes and the Italian “fringe exhibitions,” liberating Nuove Tendenze from the label of para-futurism, despite its many connections with Marinetti’s movement, especially in terms of communication.
NUOVE TENDENZE. Leonardo Dudreville and the avant-garde in the 1910s opens with a section dedicated to the developments of Divisionism in the first decade of the 20th century, where Dudreville’s works demonstrate an openness to expressive and formal values that aim for an autonomous use of pictorial sign, light, and color. The journey then continues with a part dedicated to Dudreville’s relationships with the futurist group and other artists, such as Aroldo Bonzagni.
The second part of the exhibition is dedicated to Dudreville’s participation in “fringe exhibitions” such as Nuove Tendenze, which constitutes one of the main exhibition episodes where the Milanese artistic avant-garde develops an alternative operational strategy compared to the official channels linked to the academic world.
Italy in Waiting at Palazzo da Mosto in Reggio Emilia until January 8, 2023
“Italy in Waiting. 12 Photographic Stories,” from October 15 to January 8 is on display at Palazzo da Mosto in Reggio Emilia.
The exhibition tells of an Italy suspended and interdicted, transformed by the first lockdown caused by Covid: a different time where even space, architecture, and the environment become “other” when not inhabited by humans.
Italy in Waiting develops through the visions and sensibilities of equally great photographers: Olivo Barbieri, Antonio Biasiucci, Silvia Camporesi, Mario Cresci, Paola De Pietri, Ilaria Ferretti, Guido Guidi, Andrea Jemolo, Francesco Jodice, Allegra Martin, Walter Niedermayr, and George Tatge.
On display are photographs of landscapes and squares, horizons and public spaces, works of art and everyday objects. All dislocated landscapes that marry sublime beauty with the perception of a deep crisis, where the lush nature progressively filling urban spaces corresponds to the emptiness and absence of human life.
De Chirico and the Beyond. From the “Baroque” Season to Neometaphysics (1938-1978) at Palazzo Pallavicini until March 12, 2023
Palazzo Pallavicini in Bologna hosts a major exhibition dedicated to Giorgio de Chirico, the father of metaphysical painting. The exhibition titled “De Chirico and the Beyond. From the ‘Baroque’ Season to Neometaphysics (1938-1978)” includes over seventy works from the Giorgio and Isa de Chirico Foundation in Rome and reconstructs two important moments in de Chirico’s painting: the “baroque” season and the neometaphysical season.
The “baroque” season spans from 1938 to 1968, when de Chirico draws inspiration from Rubens and great masters such as Dürer, Raphael, and Delacroix. His works, which are not realistic, aim to create an ideal and unreal world, a fiction more real than reality. The works from this season are still metaphysical: they represent a metaphysics of nature, that is, a nature that does not exist in nature.
On display is a series of important self-portraits, such as the famous Nude Self-Portrait from 1945 and the emblematic Self-Portrait in the Park in 17th Century Costume from 1956. Other fundamental works from the “baroque” period are also exhibited, including Ariostesque Still Life, 1940; The Skater, 1940; the terracotta Bucephalus, 1940; the series of Villa Medici.
