Palazzo Grassi and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago will host the exhibition "Italics: Italian Art between Tradition and Revolution 1968 - 2008", to take place at Palazzo Grassi in the fall of 2008, and curated by Francesco Bonami.
In covering a time span of over forty years, Italics will be one of the most important exhibitions dedicated to contemporary Italian art ever organized. More than 105 artists and more than 250 works will be presented not in a chronological order, but in a continuum of cross-references and quotations, creating a rich and complex dialogue between the different generations of artists.
Instead of observing Italian Art through its movements and groups, Italics intends to analyse contemporary art in Italy as a continuous flow where the past is constantly re-evoked by the more recent cultural currents and undermined by the revolutions of the various languages used by the artists exhibited.
Italics is a brave attempt at demonstrating that Italian art is much more and something deeply different from what has generally been brought to the forefront of the international art scene in the last thirty years. Italics will try to observe the Italian phenomenon from a new point of view, provocative and at times even polemical. Extremely influential figures like Fernando Melani and virtually unknown artists like Maria Lai will not fail to amaze the international public but also the Italian general public.
The exhibition intends to look into what could be defined the “Italian syndrome”, a non-linear pathway branching off in many directions that have often led Italian art astray.
1968 is a pivotal year. Many artists who are essential to the understanding of Italian art died that year: Lucio Fontana, whose architectural space presented at the 1968 Documenta 4, Kassel will be recreated in the exhibition, or Gastone Novelli, featured in Italics with the room dedicated to him in that same year, at the Venice Biennale. Pino Pascali, the enfant prodige of Arte Povera will be represented by “Vedova Blu” (Blue Widow), one of his last and rare sculptures. Works like the 1972 “I funerali di Togliatti“ (Togliatti’s Funeral) by Renato Guttuso will be exhibited vis-à-vis pieces like Alghiero Boetti’s 1987 sculpted self-portrait or Marisa Merz’s small fountain, emphasizing the tension between political dimension and private space that is at the heart of the poetics of many Italian artists.
Through a series of contrasts and symmetries, Italics will also include the latest generation of artists, ranging from Maurizio Cattelan , Vanessa Beecroft , Paola Pivi , Micol Assael and Roberto Cuoghi to emerging figures like Massimo Grimaldi and Enrico David.
Italics is a brave attempt at demonstrating that Italian art is much more and something deeply different from what has generally been brought to the forefront of the international art scene in the last thirty years. Italics will try to observe the Italian phenomenon from a new point of view, provocative and at times even polemical. Extremely influential figures like Fernando Melani and virtually unknown artists like Maria Lai will not fail to amaze the international public but also the Italian general public. The exhibition intends to look into what could be defined the “Italian syndrome”, a non-linear pathway branching off in many directions that have often led Italian art astray. 1968 is a pivotal year. Many artists who are essential to the understanding of Italian art died that year: Lucio Fontana, whose architectural space presented at the 1968 Documenta 4, Kassel will be recreated in the exhibition, or Gastone Novelli, featured in Italics with the room dedicated to him in that same year, at the Venice Biennale. Pino Pascali, the enfant prodige of Arte Povera will be represented by “Vedova Blu” (Blue Widow), one of his last and rare sculptures. Works like the 1972 “I funerali di Togliatti“ (Togliatti’s Funeral) by Renato Guttuso will be exhibited vis-à-vis pieces like Alghiero Boetti’s 1987 sculpted self-portrait or Marisa Merz’s small fountain, emphasizing the tension between political dimension and private space that is at the heart of the poetics of many Italian artists. Through a series of contrasts and symmetries, Italics will also include the latest generation of artists, ranging from Maurizio Cattelan , Vanessa Beecroft , Paola Pivi , Micol Assael and Roberto Cuoghi to emerging figures like Massimo Grimaldi and Enrico David.
After Venice, the exhibition will be travelling to Asia to then reach the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago in the fall of 2009.
Works of Italian artists from the Pinault Collection will be an important contribution to the exhibition. Italics: Italian Art between Tradition and Revolution 1968 – 2008 will be accompanied by an extensive catalogue in Italian and English containing a selection of historical texts and recent essays by young international and Italian critics.
The exhibition curator Francesco Bonami is the guest Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. He was the director of the 50th Biennale di Venezia, Visual Arts section, in 2003.
For Mondadori he has published “Potevo farlo anch’io; Perche’ l’arte contemporanea e’ davvero arte”(I could have done it myself; Why contemporary art is really art) now in its fifth reprint. He is the chief editor for the “Supercontemporanea” series by Electa/ Mondadori Publishing. His articles on contemporary art have appeared in Vanity Fair Italia, New York Times Magazine and the Italian daily Il Riformista. Bonami has been living in the United States since 1987.
“Italics. Italian Art between Tradition and Revolution, 1968-2008” is co-organized by Palazzo Grassi, Venice, François Pinault Foundation and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
In covering a time span of over forty years, Italics will be one of the most important exhibitions dedicated to contemporary Italian art ever organized. More than 105 artists and more than 250 works will be presented not in a chronological order, but in a continuum of cross-references and quotations, creating a rich and complex dialogue between the different generations of artists.
Instead of observing Italian Art through its movements and groups, Italics intends to analyse contemporary art in Italy as a continuous flow where the past is constantly re-evoked by the more recent cultural currents and undermined by the revolutions of the various languages used by the artists exhibited.
Italics is a brave attempt at demonstrating that Italian art is much more and something deeply different from what has generally been brought to the forefront of the international art scene in the last thirty years. Italics will try to observe the Italian phenomenon from a new point of view, provocative and at times even polemical. Extremely influential figures like Fernando Melani and virtually unknown artists like Maria Lai will not fail to amaze the international public but also the Italian general public.
The exhibition intends to look into what could be defined the “Italian syndrome”, a non-linear pathway branching off in many directions that have often led Italian art astray.
1968 is a pivotal year. Many artists who are essential to the understanding of Italian art died that year: Lucio Fontana, whose architectural space presented at the 1968 Documenta 4, Kassel will be recreated in the exhibition, or Gastone Novelli, featured in Italics with the room dedicated to him in that same year, at the Venice Biennale. Pino Pascali, the enfant prodige of Arte Povera will be represented by “Vedova Blu” (Blue Widow), one of his last and rare sculptures. Works like the 1972 “I funerali di Togliatti“ (Togliatti’s Funeral) by Renato Guttuso will be exhibited vis-à-vis pieces like Alghiero Boetti’s 1987 sculpted self-portrait or Marisa Merz’s small fountain, emphasizing the tension between political dimension and private space that is at the heart of the poetics of many Italian artists.
Through a series of contrasts and symmetries, Italics will also include the latest generation of artists, ranging from Maurizio Cattelan , Vanessa Beecroft , Paola Pivi , Micol Assael and Roberto Cuoghi to emerging figures like Massimo Grimaldi and Enrico David.
Italics is a brave attempt at demonstrating that Italian art is much more and something deeply different from what has generally been brought to the forefront of the international art scene in the last thirty years. Italics will try to observe the Italian phenomenon from a new point of view, provocative and at times even polemical. Extremely influential figures like Fernando Melani and virtually unknown artists like Maria Lai will not fail to amaze the international public but also the Italian general public. The exhibition intends to look into what could be defined the “Italian syndrome”, a non-linear pathway branching off in many directions that have often led Italian art astray. 1968 is a pivotal year. Many artists who are essential to the understanding of Italian art died that year: Lucio Fontana, whose architectural space presented at the 1968 Documenta 4, Kassel will be recreated in the exhibition, or Gastone Novelli, featured in Italics with the room dedicated to him in that same year, at the Venice Biennale. Pino Pascali, the enfant prodige of Arte Povera will be represented by “Vedova Blu” (Blue Widow), one of his last and rare sculptures. Works like the 1972 “I funerali di Togliatti“ (Togliatti’s Funeral) by Renato Guttuso will be exhibited vis-à-vis pieces like Alghiero Boetti’s 1987 sculpted self-portrait or Marisa Merz’s small fountain, emphasizing the tension between political dimension and private space that is at the heart of the poetics of many Italian artists. Through a series of contrasts and symmetries, Italics will also include the latest generation of artists, ranging from Maurizio Cattelan , Vanessa Beecroft , Paola Pivi , Micol Assael and Roberto Cuoghi to emerging figures like Massimo Grimaldi and Enrico David.
After Venice, the exhibition will be travelling to Asia to then reach the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago in the fall of 2009.
Works of Italian artists from the Pinault Collection will be an important contribution to the exhibition. Italics: Italian Art between Tradition and Revolution 1968 – 2008 will be accompanied by an extensive catalogue in Italian and English containing a selection of historical texts and recent essays by young international and Italian critics.
The exhibition curator Francesco Bonami is the guest Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. He was the director of the 50th Biennale di Venezia, Visual Arts section, in 2003.
For Mondadori he has published “Potevo farlo anch’io; Perche’ l’arte contemporanea e’ davvero arte”(I could have done it myself; Why contemporary art is really art) now in its fifth reprint. He is the chief editor for the “Supercontemporanea” series by Electa/ Mondadori Publishing. His articles on contemporary art have appeared in Vanity Fair Italia, New York Times Magazine and the Italian daily Il Riformista. Bonami has been living in the United States since 1987.
“Italics. Italian Art between Tradition and Revolution, 1968-2008” is co-organized by Palazzo Grassi, Venice, François Pinault Foundation and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
