New setting and exhibitions
Modern Art Gallery “G. Carandente”
Side events
Loris Cecchini
Hypermeasures
Bruno Ceccobelli
MarmoriiMarmorei
curated by Marco Tonelli
Artistic Director at Palazzo Collicola
Opening
Saturday 29 June – 11.00 a.m.
PALAZZO COLLICOLA
Spoleto
Almost twenty years after its inauguration as the seat of the permanent collection of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Spoleto, dedicated to the figure of curator and art historian Giovanni Carandente (1920-2009), Palazzo Collicola starts a new chapter under the direction of art critic Marco Tonelli.
The collection was completely redesigned, brought to the second floor of the building and rearranged according to a new museum criterion, and enriched with educational facilities and works.
The starting point of the collection will be the strong presence of modern art in the city of Spoleto, to which some thematic rooms have been dedicated, starting with the one on the 1962 exhibition Sculptures in the city (participated by the most important sculptors of the time), through the various editions of the Spoleto Prize (1953-1968), and works by Pascali, Ceroli, Uncini, Moreni, Turcato, Morlotti, Vacchi, and the Group of 6 from Spoleto.
There is a consistent presence of 30 among sculptures and drawings by Leoncillo, born in Spoleto in 1915, from his initial period to the naturalistic, neo-Cubist and especially informal one, with emblematic works including Affinità patetiche, Pietà or Corpo dolente set up in the long and bright gallery at the second floor of the building.
The itinerary is composed of various rooms displaying works that will be periodically subject to rotation, includes sections dedicated to the Forma 1 group or to the Scuola di San Lorenzo, to abstract art (from Melotti to Biggi, Verna, Bendini and Asdrubali), to figuration (including Ontani, Di Stasio and Barni), with particular attention to works by modern sculptors such as Caro, Chadwick, Arnaldo and Giò Pomodoro, Franchina and Cuschera.
Also important is the presence of works by conceptual artists such as Dibbets, Mochetti, Patella, Garutti and above all Sol Lewitt, who lived in Spoleto and in 2000 created the spectacular walldrawing Band of Color n.951 in Palazzo Collicola.
Alexander Calder (present with mobiles, wire sculptures and gouaches) and Beverly Pepper, especially in light of their relationship with Carandente (to whose donation we owe, among other things, a large part of the collection, that also includes the acquisitions of the Premio Spoleto, and bequests of artists and individuals), have their own sections, which significantly open and close the exhibition.
On the occasion of the re-design, the collection has been enriched with new works, including Gianni Asdrubali, Gastone Biggi, Stefano Di Stasio, Paola Gandolfi, Leoncillo, Francesco Lo Savio, Afranio Metelli, Nunzio, Pizzi Cannella and Francesco Somaini.
The three inner rooms of the Gallery are dedicated to drawings and graphic works by Leoncillo and Burri, by Italian artists (including Guttuso, Melotti, Raphael, Lo Savio, Gnoli, Accardi, Capogrossi) and foreign artists (including David Smith, Chillida, Scarpitta, Moore, Chadwick).
Finally, the nucleus of about 100 photographs by Ugo Mulas taken in 1962 during the exhibition Sculture nella città (Sculptures in the City) is important, works that, due to the delicacy of the supports, will be exhibited following periodic rotations.
SIDE EVENTS
Loris Cecchini: Hypermeasures
The new setting of the Spoleto Modern Art Gallery will be accompanied by two temporary interventions designed specifically for this occasion and for the external and internal spaces of Palazzo Collicola.
The first of the two is Loris Cecchini’s Hypermeasures, a special base in front of the museum entrance with a sculpture built with modules of light metal, while inside the gallery at the Piano Nobile three sculptures made with the same principle of the Alfa Alfa and Waterbones series will be suspended, linking the mechanical and technological naturalness of these ramifications and rhizomatic hyperfetations with the floral motifs of the gallery’s frescoes, typical of the so-called Spoleto baroque of the early XVIII century.
With the support of the Galleria Continua (San Gimignano/Bejing/LesMoulins/Habana)
Bruno Ceccobelli: MarmoriiMarmorei
In the fifteen rooms of the gallery at the Piano Nobile, Bruno Ceccobelli has also created a route consisting of sculptures in marble and stone, a sort of journey entitled MarmoriiMarmorei, which invites visitors to cross the rooms and meditate on the sense of Fortune and its circularity. The very symbolism of the works and the route (with a beginning and a point of return following the same itinerary), the presence of fragmentary sculptures that seem to be finds and discoveries, are proposed as an initiatory journey and clue in search of meanings and truths, which can never be given in an absolute and clear sense, but evocative and spiritual.
With the support of the company “I Sassi” from Assisi.
