At the Mart in Rovereto, a major exhibition on Botticelli and his legacy today

From May 22 to August 29, 2021, the Mart in Rovereto presents to the public the exhibition Botticelli. His Time. And Our Time, an exhibition that aims to continue the museum’s line of investigation that compares artists and movements from different eras, transcending temporal boundaries. The protagonist of the exhibition is Sandro Botticelli (Florence, 1445 - 1510) present in Rovereto with a significant nucleus of masterpieces such as Pallas and the Centaur, from the Uffizi, Venus from the Galleria Sabauda in Turin and Lamentation of Christ on loan from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan.

The exhibition, curated by Alessandro Cecchi (director of the Casa Buonarroti Foundation in Florence) and Denis Isaia (head of the Mart’s contemporary and public program), is the brainchild of Vittorio Sgarbi, president of the Mart, and aims to cross chronological boundaries and go beyond academic definitions to propose a museum that deals with art, not ideological limitations, Sgarbi says. The itinerary consists of three sections intended to present the figure and work of Botticelli, as well as the cultural legacy from the 20th century to the contemporary age. The masterpieces in the exhibition give an account of the different phases of the artist’s life: an authentic interpreter of the profound social, political, cultural and artistic changes that took place in Florence in the second half of the 15th century, Botticelli in his last years went through an existential and religious crisis and became a devout follower of the ideas of the Dominican preacher Friar Girolamo Savonarola.

The youthful phase and his relations with Filippo Lippi lead to the creation, for example, of the Portrait of a Young Boy with a Bunch of Bunches in the Pitti Palace; of the full maturity are the Pallas and the Centaur in the Uffizi and the Venus in the Sabauda Gallery in Turin. This is followed by works from the later and more tormented phase such as the Lamentation of Christ from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan, the religious pathos that distinguishes the Flagellation and theAndataal Calvario, to the unfinished Adoration of the Magi, both from the Uffizi. The exhibition also features works by Filippo Lippi, Filippino and other great artists, such as Antonio del Pollaiolo and Andrea del Verrocchio to evoke the Florence of the Renaissance, which is also echoed in the second part of the exhibition, in the works of contemporary artists, from Giosetta Fioroni to David LaChapelle, from Michelangelo Pistoletto to John Currin. In cinema and fashion, from Venus to Ferragni.

The second part of the exhibition is in fact the one dedicated to our time testifies, through undisputed masterpieces of contemporary art from the 1960s to the present, how Botticelli is the artist to whom all our visual culture refers, the pivot around which the very concept of beauty revolves. Italian Pop art artists, such as Mario Ceroli, Giosetta Fioroni and Cesare Tacchi, have looked to him, but also in immediately subsequent years figures such as Michelangelo Pistoletto and Renato Guttuso. Botticelli’s influences can be found in the works of international artists such as Fernando Botero, David LaChapelle, Oliviero Toscani, John Currin, Vik Muniz, Awol Erizku or in the cinema of Federico Fellini; they revive in the clothes of fashion designer and trade unionist Rosa Genoni and in the collections of the Maison Valentino, invade the glossy magazines on which Kate Moss poses and are co-starring in the photos of the world’s most importantinfluencer, Chiara Ferragni.

Between formal and thematic references, the exhibition aims to open reflections on the narrative and representation of women’s bodies. In fact, the leading role is played by the image of Venus, of all the most frequented by the contemporary. Like a recurring obsession that spans the centuries, between unchanged canons and new aesthetic paradigms, in the exhibition the Venus is white, black, fat, thin, transgender, ethereal or popular, almost sacred and worldly, depending on the artist who seeks her. The exhibition is accompanied by video introductions to the works by Vittorio Sgarbi, Alessandro Cecchi, Elisa Infantino, and Riccardo Venturi and a volume published by Silvana Editoriale.

In addition, on the sidelines of the exhibition, the Mart proposes the Outdoor | Venus initiative by artist Marco Lodola, also the brainchild of Vittorio Sgarbi. Invited by the Mart president to contribute to the Botticelli exhibition with an intervention in the city space, Marco Lodola therefore proposed a luminous reproduction of Botticelli’s well-known Venus. Subsequently, the artist took the cue that came from the Municipality of Rovereto and the APT - Azienda di Promozione Turistica di Rovereto e Vallagarina to install the Venus in the evocative setting of the fountain that closes the Corso named after Antonio Rosmini. The work is part of the cycle of electric sculptures that have become the stylistic hallmark of the artist who, over the years, has paid homage with his distinctive trait to icons of popular culture such as the Vespa, the Beatles, comic book heroes, the best-known faces of politics or, as in this case, the characteristic silhouette of Botticelli’s Venus. Influenced by the thought of Pop art, indifferent to the boundaries between high and low culture, and close to the free transfigurations inaugurated in Italy by Futurism, Lodola makes every possible known image his own, simplifying it in form and inserting it into the urban landscape without disdaining the idea of winking at the tradition of illuminated signs that make festive the night skyline of cities while contending for the genuine awe of the public.

For all information you can log on to the Mart di Rovereto website. Below are some images of works in the exhibition.

Sandro Botticelli, Portrait of a Boy with a Bundle (c. 1470-1471; Florence, Uffizi Galleries, Palazzo Pitti, Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments)

Sandro Botticelli, Madonna and Child, St. John and the Archangels Michael and Gabriel (c. 1485; Florence, Uffizi Galleries, Palazzo Pitti, Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments)

Sandro Botticelli, Venus (1495-1497 approx.; Turin, Galleria Sabauda)

Sandro Botticelli, Pallas and the Centaur (c. 1482; Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture)

Filippino Lippi, Madonna and St. John in Adoration of the Child (c. 1479-1480; Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture)

Giosetta Fioroni, Detail of the Birth of Venus (1965; Intesa Sanpaolo Collection)

Renato Guttuso, Primavera (1985; Private Collection)

Miles Aldridge, Like A Painting #1 (2005) Courtesy of the artist

Joel-Peter Witkin, Botticellis Venus (1982)

Juergen Teller, Kate Moss No.10, Gloucestershire (2010)

Awol Erizku, Teen Venus (2013)

Siân Davey, After the swim (i) (2015-2016; Michael Hoppen Gallery, London)

Vik Muniz, The Birth of Venus, after Botticelli (Pictures of Junk) (2008)

Michal Pudelka, Chiara Ferragni at the Uffizi (2019, photo shoot for Vogue Hong Kong)

At the Mart in Rovereto, a major exhibition on Botticelli and his legacy today

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