Turin: Exhibition “1950-1970 The great Italian art.” with Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art

From October 19th opens in Turin, in the Chiablese Rooms of the Royal Museums, a large and original exhibition dedicated to the masterpieces of the most important Italian artists of the post-war period. The large number of works, for a total of 79, comes from the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome and is brought together for the first time outside of its own museum. An extraordinary opportunity to give life to a critical and expositive project with a strong scientific rigor and to present to a wide audience the artistic testimonies of an unrepeatable season.

Produced by Musei Reali and Arthemisia with the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, the exhibition curated by the Director of GNAM Renata Cristina Mazzantini and the scholar Luca Massimo Barbero, was strongly desired and made possible by Mario Turetta, Head of the Department for Cultural Activities of the Ministry of Culture and delegate director of the Musei Reali of Turin.

The exhibition, in addition to underlining the thirty-year relationship that the superintendent Palma Bucarelli had with an exceptional group of artists, highlights the richness of the collections of the Roman museum and exalts the 21 most representative artists who animated an unprecedented season in the panorama of Italian modern art.

“The exhibition aims to highlight – reiterates the Director Renata Cristina Mazzantini – the quality, not always sufficiently perceived, of the unparalleled collections of the Gnam and at the same time to focus attention on the leading role that the Gallery played in the constitution of the modern and contemporary Italian artistic heritage, thanks above all to the active relationship that, in her three decades at the helm of the Gallery, the superintendent Palma Bucarelli was able to weave with the most significant and innovative artists of that high season, from Burri and Fontana to Pascali.”

The exhibition itinerary clearly highlights the origins of what was a true “telluric artistic movement”. “It is an intense itinerary,” he declares Luca Massimo Barbero – and, in several rooms, it is a real hand-to-hand fight between the “new masters” of post-war Italian art, whose roots are explored here and, for the first time, it is possible to compare them outside the GNAM collection. For Italian art these are the germinal protagonists, today identified as the international interpreters of the then contemporaneity. "

The exhibition, divided into twelve rooms, develops in a compelling path that proposes comparisons and dialogues that took place in the post-war years between the most important Italian artists, who have now become an indispensable point of reference in the international artistic panorama.

The exhibition opens with two symbolic works, one by Ettore Colla Rilievo con bolle from '58/'59 and another by Pino Pascali L'arco di Ulisse from '68; it continues with a room of masterpieces by Capogrossi, including a monumental Superficie from 1963. In the next room the theme of matter is investigated, a fundamental element of research in the '50s, putting two Concetti spaziale-Buchi by Lucio Fontana into dialogue, including one from 1949, with the extraordinary “Gobbo” from '50 by Alberto Burri, rare works by Ettore Colla, germinal works by Mimmo Rotella and the abstract research of Bice Lazzari.

Two rooms then compare two masters of abstraction: Afro and Piero Dorazio, masters who contributed to the success of Italian art in the United States after the Second World War. The “cornerstone of the exhibition”, as the co-curator states Barber, occurs in the comparison between two undisputed protagonists: Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri; 11 emblematic works enter into dialogue and, in particular, an unprecedented juxtaposition is established between the Concetto spaziale.

The first one is the 1965 Teatrino and the second one is the 5 Nero Cretto G1975. The artistic and creative ferment that developed in Rome between the 50s and 60s is represented in the exhibition by an enormous décollage by Mimmo Rotella from 1957 and, gradually, by the historical works of Giosetta Fioroni, Carla Accardi, Giulio Turcato, Gastone Novelli, Toti Scialoja, Sergio Lombardo, Tano Festa. A further unprecedented comparison develops between an intense black monochrome by Franco Angeli and some important Achromes by Piero Manzoni.

To testify then the importance of contemporaneity, another room dedicated to the now iconic mirror painting The Visitors from 1968 by Michelangelo Pistoletto and another to the famous “Cancellature” by Emilio Isgrò. The itinerary continues with an exciting dialogue between some significant works by Mario Schifano (including Incidente D662 from 1963) and equally extraordinary works by Pino Pascali (such as Primo piano labbra from '64). The latter, an irreverent conceptual artist, is the absolute protagonist of the last room of the exhibition, which presents masterpieces such as Ricostruzione del dinosauro from 1966 and Bachi da setola from 1968.

“The exhibition is the result of cooperation between two prestigious museum institutions of national importance, such as the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome and the Royal Museums of Turin – observes Mario Turetta –; the cultural offering of the Turin complex, after the exhibitions dedicated to the archaeological heritage for the 300th anniversary of the Museum of Antiquities and to the Baroque art system exemplified by Guercino's painting, is enriched by an exhibition that intends to address a cosmopolitan public, putting them in relation with the main issues posed by contemporary art in an extraordinary historical period, in an area that is included among the main reference districts thanks to international events, such as Artissima and Luci d'Artista, and to the presence of important public and private collections.”