At the Basilica Palladiana, the Italian Pop and Beat generations told in an exhibition

The Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza will host from March 2 to June 30, 2024 the exhibition POP/BEAT - Italy 1960-1979, conceived and curated by artist Roberto Floreani for the Municipality of Vicenza and Silvana Editoriale, which have taken on the co-production.

The Italian Pop and Beat generations, witnesses of a common feeling of those years, linked to an optimistic vision of the future and the commitment of Sixty-Eight, will be told and exhibited together. The intent is to highlight the uniqueness of the Italian Pop generation, as well as the substantial differences and autonomy of its artists from their American counterparts. In Italy, in fact, a bottom-up attendance will be nurtured, sensitive to the national artistic tradition, to the landscape, to the Futurist avant-garde, which will be the protagonist of social, political and cultural changes in the squares, in the streets, in the factories, in the universities.

The Pop section, with nearly a hundred works by thirty-five artists, will privilege large formats that will be showcased by a large section of sculptures. Present will be works by Valerio Adami, Franco Angeli, Enrico Baj, Paolo Baratella, Roberto Barni, Gianni Bertini, Alik Cavaliere, Mario Ceroli, Claudio Cintoli, Lucio Del Pezzo, Fernando De Filippi, Bruno Di Bello, Tano Festa, Giosetta Fioroni, Pietro Gallina, Piero Gilardi, Sergio Lombardo, Roberto Malquori, Renato Mambor, Elio Marchegiani, Umberto Mariani, Gino Marotta, Titina Maselli, Fabio Mauri, Aldo Mondino, Ugo Nespolo, Pino Pascali, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Concetto Pozzati, Mimmo Rotella, Sergio Sarri, Mario Schifano, Giangiacomo Spadari, Tino Stefanoni, Cesare Tacchi, and Emilio Tadini.

The Beat section in the exhibition will be accompanied by the music of those years, played on a loop, and represented by rare original documents by Gianni Milano, Aldo Piromalli, Andrea D’Anna, Gianni De Martino, Pietro Tartamella, Eros Alesi, Vincenzo Parrella and many others, as well as the militant artistic events of the Sicilian Antigroup.

Floreani’s project aims to recontextualize the very nature of Italian Pop and Beat, prioritizing what the artists themselves declared about their research.

The exhibition will be accompanied by collateral events that will be offered in some of the city’s main venues, in collaboration with the Bertoliana Civic Library, the New Conversations - Vicenza Jazz festival, the Odeon Cinema, the Poetry Vicenza contemporary poetry and music festival, the La Piccionaia Theater Production Center, the Theama Teatro Cultural Association and the “Arrigo Pedrollo” Vicenza Music Conservatory.

Schools will also be involved, starting with a specific educational section set up on the ground floor of the Basilica Palladiana, in the Salone degli Zavatteri.

Image: Enrico Baj, Couple (1963; private collection). Courtesy Giò Marconi, Milan

At the Basilica Palladiana, the Italian Pop and Beat generations told in an exhibition

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