At MAXXI L'Aquila an exhibition-tribute to L'Aquila artist Marcello Mariani

An exhibition for the holiday season at MAXXI L’Aquila, the home of the National Museum of 21st Century Arts that opened this summer in the Abruzzo capital. In fact, from December 8, 2021 to January 9, 2022, the exhibition Omaggio a Marcello Mariani(Homage to Marcello Mariani ) will be held, a diffuse exhibition that aims to give back an articulated view on the work of L’Aquila-based artist Marcello Mariani (L’Aquila, 1938 - 2017), his connection with the city and his artistic collaborations.

The objective of Homage to Marcello Mariani is to guide the public through L’Aquila’s historic center to discover his work, through canvases, sculptures, but also through photographic documentation of the artist’s activity.The MAXXI is exhibiting the large canvas entitled Croce Archetipica: it is a work made up of five canvases arranged on the floor to form a Greek cross: some of the representations hark back to a dimension of earth, of archetypal forms that lead back to natural elements. Other forms hark back to an idea of the otherworldly, of angels, as if to lighten oneself from earthly burdens and events in order to rise toward the divine. This constant tension between earth and sky, lightness and gravity, constantly recalls the author’s relationship of great intimacy with the Abruzzo region and with the city of L’Aquila, whose buildings were often the subject of interventions by the artist, who, with a watchful eye, used to reappropriate pieces of plaster and fragments found in the street that he then used in the creation of the artworks. The bond with the capital city can be seen in numerous works, the colors of the city’s buildings can be traced in many of Mariani’s paintings. “I loved and love this city,” Mariani confessed in a 2015 interview with the local news outlet News-Town, “however, after the earthquake, between us it’s as if there was a divorce. The day after the earthquake, I immediately went to collect debris from the house and soil from the garden; I then used walnut for sepia and elderberry for purple. I tried, in this way, to react because I had nothing left and everything was destroyed. Now I’m trying to reconnect with the city and painting helps me a lot in that: all these patinas, these walls, these dirty yellows, these grays on white. It’s all a painting that I’ve been looking at to take in, digest and give more.”

Instead, several venues are hosting part of the Forme Archetipe and Angeli series: the Fondazione Carispaq, the Fondazione Giorgio de Marchis Bonanni D’Ocre Onlus and La Galleria di Bper Banca. These are works that represent the connection with the earth and natural elements, which are complemented by the theme of ascension and flight. Finally, at Palazzo Camponeschi, home of the Rector’s Office of the University of L’Aquila, photographs taken by Gianni Berengo Gardin at the artist’s L’Aquila studio are on display, a document on his work and figure. The bond between Marcello Mariani and L’Aquila is indissoluble: in many of Mariani’s paintings it is possible to find traces of the city, both in the color choices and in the very material of which the works are composed. The city’s buildings in fact become the subject of the artist’s own interventions, who with a keen eye used to reappropriate pieces of plaster and fragments found in the street that he then used in the creation of the artworks.

The exhibition counts on the support of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, which, after enabling the equipping of Palazzo Ardinghelli with a state-of-the-art carbon-fiber lighting system, is now sponsoring this initiative and the pilot project of Artist Residencies that the Museum has already launched and will play a major role in its programming in 2022. Also crucial to the project’s success is the contribution of the Marcello Mariani Archive, which preserves and disseminates the artist’s work, divulging not only the historical and artistic relevance of Marcello Mariani’s work, but preserving the memory of the human qualities of an artist who drew profound inspiration from the city of L’Aquila, celebrating its historical, artistic and architectural peculiarities.

Marcello Mariani was born in 1938, and in the 1960s and 1970s the artist worked with informal painting, in the wake of the influence of the master Alberto Burri, whom he frequented during the international contemporary art exhibitions “Current Alternatives” curated by Enrico Crispolti in L’Aquila between 1962 and 1968. The artist’s research is determined by the influence of Fontana and Burri, which lead him to develop a very personal and reactionary approach to market-society and capitalism. Some of the most important exhibitions he has taken part in are Regions and Testimonies of Italy at the Complesso Monumentale del Vittoriano, in which he represents Italian neoinformal painting. In 2011, Marcello Mariani exhibited at the Italian Pavilion of the 54th Venice International Art Biennale. In 2015, he exhibited in Milan at the Italian Pavilion of EXPO with Berengo Gardin and at Fondazione Le Stelline in a documentary exhibition with Lucio Fontana.

MAXXI L’Aquila opens Thursdays from 4 to 8 p.m., Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Monday through Wednesday and Dec. 25. Special openings: Dec. 8 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Dec. 11 from 11 a.m. to midnight, Dec. 23-Jan. 9 daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Dec. 24 and 31 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Fondazione Carispaq opens Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 5 p.m., closed Saturdays and Sundays. The Giorgio De Marchis Foundation opens Tuesday through Thursday from 3 to 7 p.m., special openings on Dec. 8, 11 and 19 Dec. 6 and Jan. 9 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Bper Bank Gallery opens Monday through Friday from 8:40 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., closed Saturdays and Sundays. Palazzo Camponeschi opens Monday to Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., closed Saturdays and Sundays and Dec. 25 to Jan. 3.

Image: Marcello Mariani, Archetypal Cross, detail (2006-2015; oil, collage and mixed media on canvas)

At MAXXI L'Aquila an exhibition-tribute to L'Aquila artist Marcello Mariani

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