Caprese, Michelangelo Galliani's sculptures at Michelangelo Buonarroti's Birthplace

From Aug. 22 to Sept. 26, 2021, the Castle of Caprese (Arezzo), Michelangelo Buonarroti’s first home, will host a solo exhibition by Michelangelo Galliani (Montecchio Emilia, 1975) entitled Vertigo. Promoted by the Municipality of Caprese Michelangelo and the Michelangelo Buonarroti Birthplace Museum with the collaboration of Cris Contini Contemporary and Galleria delle Arti, the exhibition takes place in the spaces enclosed within the ancient city walls: Palazzo Clusini, the High Court and the ancient parade ground, now a sculpture garden, a terrace that opens onto the upper Tiber Valley, “the Museum Valley,” the homeland of Piero della Francesca, experienced by the young Raphael.

The exhibition at Michelangelo Buonarroti’s Birthplace includes some 15 works that testify to the artist’s production from the early 2000s to the present, with the addition of some previously unseen works, including Vertigo, a sculpture in black Marquinia marble and stainless steel that gives the project its title. Small- and medium-format works will be placed in glass and steel vitrines inside Palazzo Clusini, in dialogue with sculptures by Emilio Greco, Vincenzo Gemito, Medardo Rosso and Antonio Canova, while the Corte Alta (home to a substantial gipsoteca of works by Michelangelo Buonarroti) and the garden will feature large-format sculptures such as Lassù (2016) and Vergine degli inganni (2014).

“The artist,” writes art critic Pasquale Lettieri, author of the critical text accompanying the exhibition, “has projected himself into a place, the Birthplace of Michelangelo Buonarroti, where his works explore every element of material culture and verify it, expressing a depth comparable to the mythical names in the history of ’art, and few are the continuators who allow such a powerful form of expression to transit in the plots of this flickering actuality, answering to the names of Nunzio, Antonio Trotta, Ivan Theimer, Igor Mitoraj, reaffirming the strength of these works in the contexts of collective life, so much so that today they are considered in every way, indispensable. Michelangelo Galliani stands between the classical and extreme experimentation, through which to look at the things of the world, with an open mind, but also with a great opinion of one’s own individuality, which is the trump card, because it makes protagonists, long-range. [...] An enigmatic presence that of Michelangelo Galliani’s works, treated in such a way as to achieve a phantasmal vision, capable of disquieting, as evoking mysterious and impenetrable images, placed in front of the weight of history, which becomes the real stage backdrop of sculptural apparitions, of gestural expressionistic, put there, to celebrate a contrapasso between material inconsistency of the plastic, almost unpredictable event and this sculptural evidence of classical taste.”

The staff is daily with hours 9:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m.-6:30 p.m. (ticket office closes 30 minutes before). Online reservation is recommended. The finissage will be held on Thursday, September 23 at 6 pm. For information: T. +39 0575 793776, info@casanatalemichelangelo.it, www.casanatalemichelangelo.it.

Michelangelo Galliani was born in 1975 in Montecchio Emilia, Reggio Emilia. He began working as a sculptor at a very young age. He first attended the Paolo Toschi Art Institute in Parma with a specialization in Scenotechnics, then specialized at the Institute for Art and Restoration of Palazzo Spinelli in Florence and finally graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara with a specialization in Sculpture. Since 1996, he has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Recent exhibitions include Le Latitudini dell’Arte (Hungary and Italy, Vigadò Galéria, Budapest, 2017), Wondertime (GAM, Catania, 2018), Skulptur, trifft Figur (Einladung, Austria, 2018), Sensitive Surfaces (Cris Contini Contemporary, London, 2019), Ad integrum. 4 works by Michelangelo Galliani at the Basilica of San Celso (Basilica di San Celso, Milan, 2020). He also participated in the project Art&Design, promoted by Andrea Castrignano on the occasion of Milano Design City 2020. The following exhibitions are worth mentioning in 2021: In fragmenta (Cris Contini Contemporary, Porto Montenegro, until October 15, 2021), Nebula (Vôtre spazi contemporanei, Carrara, July 24-September 15, 2021), Vertigo (Museo Casa Natale di Michelangelo Buonarroti, Caprese Michelangelo, Arezzo, August 22-September 26, 2021). He was awarded the Franco Cuomo International Award for Art with an award ceremony in the Sala Zuccari of Palazzo Giustiniani in Rome. Currently, in addition to his work as a sculptor, he holds the chair of Marble and Stone Techniques at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino. He works with the Cris Contini Contemporary gallery based in London and Porto Montenegro.

Caprese Castle is the birthplace of Michelangelo Buonarroti, who saw the light here on March 6, 1475. The site retains much of the fortifications and some of the interior buildings. The original nucleus of the museum, founded in 1875, revolves around the Palazzo del Podestà, the house where Michelangelo was born, a building from the first half of the 15th century that was the residence of the Florentine podestà who held annual office here. Among these podestà was, in 1474-1475, Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarroti, Michelangelo’s father: a document of Ludovico’s, found in 1875 at the Archives of the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, attests to the birth of his son Michelangelo in Caprese on March 6, 1475 (1474 according to ancient Florentine custom) and also testifies to his baptism two days later at the nearby church of San Giovanni Battista. Michelangelo Buonarroti’s Birthplace then consists of two other buildings: the Corte Alta, a full-bodied gipsoteca of works by Michelangelo, and Palazzo Clusini, which houses works by sculpture personalities such as Emilio Greco, Vincenzo Gemito, Medardo Rosso, and Canova.

Photo: Michelangelo Galliani, Matrix (2013; Carrara statuary marble and stainless steel, 280 x 65 x 55 cm). Photo by Enrico Turillazzi

Caprese, Michelangelo Galliani's sculptures at Michelangelo Buonarroti's Birthplace

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