Fausto Melotti at GAM in Turin: a journey through art, music and experimentation

In 1972, Turin ’s Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea paid tribute to Fausto Melotti (Rovereto, 1901 - Milan, 1986) with an extensive retrospective that consecrated his role as a master of20th-century Italian art. Today, more than fifty years later, GAM returns to celebrate the great sculptor, painter and ceramist with a new exhibition entitled Let me enjoy myself!, produced in collaboration with the Fausto Melotti Foundation and curated by Chiara Bertola and Fabio Cafagna.

The exhibition, which will open to the public from April 16 to September 7, 2025, brings together more than one hundred and fifty works from public and private collections. At the center of the itinerary is the precious nucleus of works conserved by GAM, including the monumental Ascending Modulation (1977), located in the museum garden. The title of the exhibition takes up an ironic statement by the artist and emphasizes his playful and experimental approach, a distinctive feature of a creative path that has always oscillated between mathematical rigor and poetic lightness.

A journey through matter, rhythm and space

Divided into eight sections, the exhibition follows a chronological and thematic order, highlighting the central nodes of Melotti’s research. The heart of the layout is an evocative reconstruction of his studios in Milan, on Via Leopardi, and Rome, on Via Margutta, places of intense creativity that marked different phases of his career.

The exhibition rooms follow one another in a path through the main themes of his poetics. From theabstractionism of the first half of the 1930s, linked to the lesson of Kandinsky and his collaboration with the Concrete Art Movement, we move on to Cities and Forests, in which geometry gives way to urban and natural evocations. Cosmogonies and ancient myths return the artist’s interest in the sacred and the archetype, while Alphabets testifies to his reflection on the link between writing, sign and sculpture.

Special attention is given to the relationship between art and music, two dimensions that are deeply intertwined in Melotti. In Musical Variations and Natural Rhythms, emptiness and silence become essential elements of the composition, evoking suspended sonorities and harmonic structures. The installation also extends the dialogue with the space beyond the exhibition rooms, involving the atrium, vestibules and garden with large-scale sculptures.

Between ceramics and theater: the many souls of Melotti

Among the most fascinating sections is the one devoted to Ceramic Production and Teatrini, small scenarios populated by anthropomorphic figures. Beginning in the mid-1940s, Melotti experimented with ceramics, producing works in which the narrative dimension is mixed with a delicate and refined plastic sensibility. The Teatrini, in particular, appear as worlds in miniature, where irony, melancholy and lightness are condensed.

Also characterizing the exhibition is a careful work on the layout, which echoes some of the display solutions conceived by Melotti himself. In the rooms dedicated to ceramics and Theaters, the atmosphere evokes that of his ateliers, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in the artist’s creative processes. The exhibition represents a not-to-be-missed opportunity to delve into the figure of Melotti, a multifaceted artist who was able to combine sculpture, painting, ceramics, writing and music.

Practical information

Opening hours: Tuesday - Sunday: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Closed Mondays.

Fausto Melotti at GAM in Turin: a journey through art, music and experimentation

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