An exhibition in Rome to rediscover Gino Galli, unknown and troubled futurist

An exhibition to rediscover Gino Galli (Rome, 1893 - 1944), a favorite pupil of Giacomo Balla, a futurist almost completely unknown even to the most up-to-date historiography, a solitary, tormented and modern painter. This is the one that the MLAC - Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea ofLa SapienzaUniversity in Rome presents from March 10 to May 6, 2023. Entitled Gino Galli (1893-1944). The rediscovery of a painter between Futurism and the Return to Order, it is curated by Edoardo Sassi, journalist for Corriere della Sera, and Giulia Tulino, research fellow (Sapienza University of Rome), carried out with the scientific coordination of Ilaria Schiaffini, professor of History of Contemporary Art and director of MLAC.

Gino Galli figured among the historical exponents of Futurism as early as 1914, was the author and signatory of important theoretical texts, co-director of the magazine Roma Futurista (with Balla, Giuseppe Bottai and Enrico Rocca) and the protagonist, in 1919 and 1921, of two solo exhibitions at the Casa d’arte Bragaglia in Rome, one of the most important galleries of the time. Despite all this, Galli has been until today an artist almost completely unknown even to the historiography on Futurism, except for rare and not infrequently erroneous citations, starting with the date of his death (almost everywhere postponed by ten years).

The exhibition, sponsored by Sapienza University of Rome, the first ever dedicated to Galli more than a hundred years after his two solo shows at the Casa d’Arte Bragaglia in Rome (1919 and 1921) and almost eighty years after his death, attempts to reconstruct his journey: homosexual, fond of occultism, probably morphine addict, member of Mussolini’s secret police (Ovra), sub-confidant in the network of Bice Pupeschi, spy and lover of Fascist police chief Arturo Bocchini, portrayed by the artist in a 1930s painting, the only one extant.

It is thus a rediscovery of a controversial but prominent protagonist of twentieth-century art, of whom about fifty paintings (from the pre-Futurist beginnings to the 1940s) are presented from private collections with the exception of three works (one from the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art and two from the Brescia Musei Foundation) together with original documents. All unpublished materials, with rare exceptions. The exhibition (scholarly in layout, but with elements of narrative) also addresses the crux of Galli’s “disappearance” after a dazzling debut that saw him play a leading role in the ranks of the Futurist avant-garde. In fact, his production of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, during which the artist adhered to the stylistic features of the Return to Order and above all to a Magic Realism charged with symbolism, is also exhibited, giving rise to works (portraits, landscapes, still lifes) of great originality and intense chromaticism.

Also specific to the painter was the production of paintings of erotic subjects, exceptionally large in size (a rare occurrence in the history of art), some examples of which are presented. Among them is a painting that has miraculously survived to the present day thanks to more than a decade of concealment in a cellar: a portrait of a young man in a black shirt in an explicit gesture of autoeroticism, datable to about 1920-1921.

The catalog, published by De Luca Edizione d’arte, edited by Edoardo Sassi and Giulia Tulino, with an introduction by Ilaria Schiaffini and a foreword by Claudia Salaris presents critical contributions by: Giancarlo Carpi (Academy of Fine Arts Sanremo), Antonella Pesola (Gerardo Dottori Archives-Perugia), Enrico Bittoto (scholar and collector), Tommaso Mozzati (University of Perugia), Massimo Rossi Ruben, Simona Magrelli and Claudio Carbonaro (Studio of Restoration and Conservation of Works of Art), Claudio Falcucci (M.I.D.A. Studio - Methodologies of Investigation for Artistic Diagnostics) and apparatus by Alessandro Sarlo.

The exhibition opens Monday through Saturday from 3 to 7 p.m. Free admission. For information: www.museolaboratorioartecontemporanea.it

alli,

alli

alli,

alli,

alli

alli

An exhibition in Rome to rediscover Gino Galli, unknown and troubled futurist

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.