Exhibition reviews

Restless renaissance and viaticum padani, from Brescia to Ferrara

In recent decades, historians have declined some historical categories in the plural. Thus the monolithic and imperious Renaissance, with a capital letter, has begun to break down into multiple renaissances, where the adjective regionalist has gained...
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Ulvi Liegi between stain and impression in a painting that is an ode to color. The exhibition in Livorno

It is now more than 54 years since Giuliano Matteucci wrote that Ulvi Liegi 's painting is "now finally recognized by all as one of the first voices of current modern art." Yet despite the fact that it was one of the pivotal figures in the history of...
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Art is not just beauty: works are not passive. On the exhibition of works confiscated from the Mafia.

It has often been repeated, slavishly following a pure and forcibly utopian ideal, that art elevates and purifies the soul of the viewer lost in the world. But art has not been (and probably never will be) a mere site of that longed-for "beauty," or ...
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Michael Sweerts, from the vestiges of Rome to the shadows of the East.

He must have been quite a guy, this Sweerts. From a Flemish family ennobled by the textile trade, Andrea, G. De Marchi and Claudio Seccaroni recall today in the catalog of the exhibition, still running in Rome until Jan. 18 at the Accademia di San Lu...
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Art in the Ludovisi papacy, among the shortest of the seventeenth century. What the exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale looks like.

The most monumental altarpiece by Giovan Francesco Barbieri known as Guercino was commissioned to the Cento painter in 1621 by Pope Gregory XV, born Alessandro Ludovisi, for the head altar of the north aisle of St. Peter's Basilica, where in 1606 the...
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When art and poetry were twins. What the exhibition "Painting and Poetry" at the Borghese Gallery looks like.

It's hard to pay attention to the base when admiring Bernini'sApollo and Daphne , caught up in that marvel of marble, Apollo's running, Daphne's fingers becoming branches and laurel leaves, Daphne's legs becoming a trunk, the nymph's lightness, Berni...
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The extraordinary relevance of Giorgio Vasari, modern artist. What the Arezzo exhibition looks like

In a letter dated May 10, 1548, Annibal Caro expresses to Giorgio Vasari his desire to take possession of one of his works, suggesting that it would be better if the work were done with some haste: not so much because Annibal Caro was in a hurry (and...
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Vera Lutter, unique photographs that make the real ambiguous. What the exhibition at MAST in Bologna looks like.

That the aura of the work of art no longer derives from its uniqueness is a fact that has been acknowledged ever since Walter Benjamin, at the turn of the two world wars, published the famous essay The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproduc...
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The revolution of the circle in Marina Apollonio

The word "abstractionism," in the arts, is in danger of being a meaningless word. And not because, conversely, "figurative" makes sense. On the contrary. It is a confusion that came about with the avant-gardes who, having faith in the new, considered...
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Return to futurism: here's what the National Gallery of Rome exhibition looks like

The public about to enter the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome has been queuing for seven years amid Davide Rivalta's lions, guardians against passatism, imperious felines ready to roar against everything that smacks of the ran...
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If the machine is an instrument of poetry. What the Jean Tinguely exhibition in Milan looks like.

Jean Tinguely returns to Milan seventy years after the first time and forty-four after he chose it to declare Nouveau Réalisme dead, on the tenth anniversary of its founding, that is, the time when all the artists of the movement gathered in M...
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Niki de Saint Phalle, total modern artist. What the exhibition at Mudec in Milan looks like.

Topical, captivating and complete: it is with these three adjectives that I would define the anthological exhibition that Mudec - Museo delle Culture in Milan dedicates to Niki de Saint Phalle (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1930 - San Diego, 2002), the French-A...
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Berthe Morisot, the "dissident of the fairer sex" on Italian debut: what the Genoa and Turin exhibitions look like

Those who want to see Berthe Morisot's work from life this fall are forced to split their time between two venues within a couple of hours of each other: GAM in Turin and Palazzo Ducale in Genoa are hosting two exhibitions, both independent, to prese...
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One hundred years since the Surrealist Manifesto. What the Surréalisme exhibition at the Centre Pompidou looks like.

A long history, that of Surrealism. Not only because of its enduring influence, nor because of the centennial celebrations underway in Italy and abroad. Referring to the chronology that welcomes visitors to the Centre Pompidou from September 4, 2024 ...
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An intense journey among the great and forgotten of the 16th century in Ferrara. What the exhibition at the Palazzo dei Diamanti looks like

If we were to accompany Jacob Burckhardt on his visits to the galleries of Rome and listen to him as he pauses to describe the pieces that most and best captured his interest, we would most likely derive sharp adjectives from them, suitable for defin...
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Henri Cartier-Bresson, the decisive instant of the South

Henri Cartier-Bresson's travels in Italy are journeys, especially to the South, recounted in photographic "reportages" that have a vague ethnographic flavor. The tone with which the French photographer approaches our worlds is somewhat reminiscent of...
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