Franca Ghitti sculptor: a unique exhibition on her career in Mendrisio. Photos

Scheduled from April 15 to July 15, 2018, at the Museo d’Arte Mendrisio (Canton Ticino, Switzerland) is the exhibition Franca Ghitti scultrice, entirely dedicated to the work of the Camuna artist Franca Ghitti (Erbanno, 1932 - Brescia, 2012), with a careful selection of works covering the entire span of her long career. In particular, in the rooms of the Museo d’Arte Mendrisio the public will be able to find some of Franca Ghitti’s most important works, starting with works in wood (a material to which she was very attached, given her origins: in fact, wood sculpture is typical of the Camonica Valley), such as the Maps, Vicinias, Tondi, Wayside Shrines, Madieas and Bosco. Also present are works in iron (the Sail Trees, Sundials, Rain), which represent a sort of completion of the research the artist conducted on wood. Among the main motifs of Franca Ghitti’s art was the reuse and recovery of waste elements, which were combined to create figures and even new iconographies. The exhibition, curated by Barbara Paltenghi Malacrida in collaboration with Elena Pontiggia, then also includes a section devoted to art editions, some of them published with the famous publisher Vanni Scheiwiller, who was a friend of the artist.

“Franca Ghitti,” writes Elena Pontiggia, “has favored two-dimensional sculpture not only because, as one might think, ’she comes from painting,’ that is, she cultivated in her early days a pictorial research and also practiced engraving for a long time, but above all because her work has, subterraneously, an existential accent. One must move precisely from that accent to grasp all the richness of meaning of his art, which is never a stylistic exercise and, conversely, never falls into a mannered tragicism, into that ’theater of anguish’ that Longhi deprecated. On the contrary, his work proceeds toward a growing lightness and lightness, which, however, do not erase a silent cognition of pain.”

The exhibition displays about sixty works and is also the first anthological exhibition on Franca Ghitti mounted in a Swiss museum. Accompanying the exhibition, works from the Bolzani Collection, an important bequest of about one hundred works of 20th-century Italian art collected by Nene and Luciano Bolzani, whose children, Lorenza and Giovanni, decided to donate to the museum, will also be on display until July 15. These include works by artists such as Giorgio Morandi, Lorenzo Viani, Mario Sironi, Carlo Carrà, Ardengo Soffici, Renato Guttuso, Bruno Cassinari, Ennio Morlotti, Vittorio Tavernari, Franco Francese, Emilio Vedova, and Luciano Minguzzi; among Ticino artists Filippo Boldini, Edmondo Dobrzanski, Giovanni Genucchi, Sergio Emery, Renzo Ferrari, Cesare Lucchini, and Gabai.

The Franca Ghitti sculptor exhibition is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 5 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays (except holidays). Admission: 10 euros full, 8 euros reduced. The 80-page catalog, with reproductions of all the works in the exhibition, sees essays by the two curators, a text on art editions edited by Maria Luisa Ardizzone and a rich chapter of apparatus edited by Irene Cafarelli. For information you can visit the official website of the Mendrisio Museum of Art. Below is a selection of works.

Franca Ghitti, Map of Plowed Fields (1979-1980; wood, 71 x 193 x 2 cm; Cellatica, Archivio Franca Ghitti)

Franca Ghitti, Neighbor, Ancestor Table No. 1 (1976; wood, 108 x 160 x 6 cm; Cellatica, Franca Ghitti Archives)

Franca Ghitti, Rain (1980s; installation with iron scraps, 102 x 64 x 1 cm each; Cellatica, Franca Ghitti Archives)

Franca Ghitti, Spiral (2011; iron, 122 cm diameter; Cellatica, Franca Ghitti Archive)

Franca Ghitti, Tondo (s.d.; wood, sheet metal, color, diameter 121 cm; Cellatica, Archivio Franca Ghitti)

Franca Ghitti, Bosco (s.d.; installation with 12 trees, wood, iron color; Cellatica, Archivio Franca Ghitti)

Franca Ghitti, Waterfall (1995; installation, scrap iron; Cellatica, Archivio Franca Ghitti)

Franca Ghitti sculptor: a unique exhibition on her career in Mendrisio. Photos

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