A major exhibition on Antonio Ligabue in Parma, dedicated to Flavio Bucci, with more than 80 works

From September 17, 2020 to May 30, 2021, the exhibition spaces of Palazzo Tarasconi open in Parma with a major exhibition dedicated to Antonio Ligabue (Zurich, 1899 - Gualtieri, 1965), entitled Ligabue. Giving Voice to Nature. Initially scheduled between April and December this year, the exhibition was rescheduled due to the health emergency: conceived and realized by Augusto Agosta Tota, Marzio Dall’Acqua and Vittorio Sgarbi, organized by the Centro Studi e Archivio Antonio Ligabue di Parma, promoted by the Fondazione Archivio Antonio Ligabue di Parma, included in the calendar of initiatives of Parma Capitale Italiana della Cultura 2020+21, with Fidenza Village as the official partner of the initiative and QN Quotidiano Nazionale as media partner, the exhibition presents 83 paintings and 4 sculptures by Ligabue, capable of analyzing the themes that most characterized his artistic parabola, from self-portraits, to landscapes, to wild and domestic animals. The itinerary also includes a section with 15 plastic works by Michele Vitaloni (Milan, 1967) an artist considered akin to Ligabue because of his particular empathy for the natural and animal world.

The works are arranged in the visually striking and theatrical installation, specially designed by Cesare Inzerillo to create an atmosphere of fusion between painting and sculpture, and to lead the visitor inside Ligabue’s creative imagination, analyzing the artist’s most frequented subjects, starting with self-portraits, which constitute a perennial and constant human condition of anguish, desolation and bewilderment.

An important nucleus of works is dedicated to the natural world, in particular to the animal kingdom; both to that of the lower Po Valley, set in an everyday life of hard work in the fields (as in the canvas Plowing of 1961), or of simple rural life (as in the painting Courtyard of 1930), but also and above all to the wild world, where the protagonists are tigers, lions, leopards, and hyenas, which Ligabue first studied on the pages of books and then painted, identifying with them to the point of assuming their attitudes: Ligabue, in fact, roared frighteningly and imitated the motions in the act of biting his prey. Exemplary in this regard are some works exhibited in Parma, such as Leopard with Buffalo and Hyena (1928), Tiger Assaulted by Snake (1953), King of the Forest (1959), Black Widow (1951).

“We will return to looking at the world through the eyes of Antonio Ligabue,” says Augusto Agosta Tota, president of the Antonio Ligabue Archive Foundation of Parma. Like the great painter from the Bassa, in these months of isolation, we have learned to feel in our depths a feeling of anguish, pain and helplessness, mixed with that of hope and expectation of a normality we felt we could achieve. And now that we have an opening date for the exhibition and the secret confidence that the worst of this terrible pandemic is behind us, we can finally train our souls to welcome the emotions that only Ligabue’s works can instill. By a subtle twist of fate, the exhibition opens at the gates of autumn, the season most in tune with Ligabue’s expressionist language."

“At Palazzo Tarasconi in Parma,” says Vittorio Sgarbi, “the clash between Antonio Ligabue, present and alive before us, and Michele Vitaloni is consummated. Vitaloni was born two years after Ligabue’s death. Today, those who have lived long enough to have seen them both active, Augusto Agosta Tota, put them side by side and discover affinities that are not only determined by the identity of the subjects, mainly wild animals, lions, tigers, leopards, but by energy, animation, life. It follows, in the motivated comparison, that Ligabue’s animals are alive, not painted. Vitaloni reproduces them to enhance their beauty.”

On the occasion of the Parma exhibition, the Antonio Ligabue Archive Foundation of Parma will present the General Catalogue of Antonio Ligabue. Paintings, Sculptures, Drawings and Engravings, in three volumes, (bilingual Italian and English edition) with texts by Augusto Agosta Tota, Vittorio Sgarbi, Flavio Caroli, Marzio Dall’Acqua, among others. The exhibition will be accompanied by a bilingual (Italian and English) catalog with reproductions of all the works on display and essays by the curators.

The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Flavio Bucci, the actor who passed away last Feb. 18 and whose unforgettable performance had given Antonio Ligabue his face in the film directed in 1982 by Salvatore Nocita.

The exhibition is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tickets: full 10 euros, reduced 8 euros (under 26 and over 65, groups of at least 15 people), special reduced 5 euros for schools, free for children under 6. Audioguides on sale at a cost of 3 euros. For information visit the Ligabue Archive Foundation website.

Image: Antonio Ligabue, Leopard with Buffalo and Hyena (1928; oil on canvas, 83 x 126 cm)

A major exhibition on Antonio Ligabue in Parma, dedicated to Flavio Bucci, with more than 80 works

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