Genoa, blue Klein challenges 17th-century Bernardo Strozzi at Villa Croce

In addition to ArteJeans and Ben Patterson’s restored Constellation, the multifaceted exhibition BLUE Fall at Villa Croce offers three other exhibitions: Klein vs. Strozzi. Under the Sign of Blue, Rocco Borella. Blue Tribute for the Centennial, Flavio Magurno. Animulae, 2020, all of which can be visited until Jan. 17, 2021.

Klein vs. Strozzi is produced in collaboration with Musei di Strada Nuova, MART in Rovereto, and the Matteo Lampertico Arte Antica e Moderna galleries in Milan and UniMediaModern in Genoa. It is an imaginary challenge between the greatest painter of seventeenth-century Liguria, Bernardo Strozzi, and one of the most relevant artists of the twentieth century, the Frenchman Yves Klein, famous for his obsession with blue. In line with Vittorio Sgarbi ’s idea, who between 2019 and 2020 had placed a work by Klein from a private collection and Strozzi ’s large altarpiece depicting the Madonna and Child in Glory and Saints from the Parish of SS. Peter and Paul in Tiarno di Sopra (Trento), characterized by a dazzling blue hue of the Madonna’s and St. Peter’s robes, Genoa has chosen to exhibit a number of Klein’s pictorial and sculptural works, including the famous Nike, in dialogue with Bernardo Strozzi ’s St. Francis from the Strada Nuova Museums, whose figure emerges from a magnetic blue background.

On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Genoese artist Rocco Borella, Villa Croce has organized, in collaboration with the Rocco Borella and Luciano Caprile Cultural Association, an exhibition in the same place where an anthological exhibition was dedicated to him in 1992. On display are works from the permanent collection of Villa Croce and loans from private collections made by the artist famous for his chromemes. The selection of works in the exhibition was made by critic Luciano Caprile, who focused on the Genoese master’suse of the color blue.

The exhibition dedicated to Fulvio Magurno is being held in collaboration with Stefania Ghiglione’s Capoverso Gallery in Genoa, and is an opportunity to present the photographer artist’s unpublished work entitled Animulae. It is a site-specific work that includes the series of ten small-format (30 x 20 cm) UV prints on board. The works, as a kind of icons, as well as a declared homage to Yves Klein, are inspired by the eighteenth-century Crucifixes of Anton Maria Maragliano (1664-1739), and by effect of chromatic processing these turn to an evocative symphony of blue: almost a reflection of the evanescence of the soul with respect to the consistency of flesh and body.

For info: www.visitgenoa.it/evento/autunno-blu-villa-croce

Image: Bernardo Strozzi, Saint Francis Embracing the Crucifix, detail (oil on canvas, 95 x 76 cm; Genoa, Musei di Strada Nuova - Palazzo Rosso)

Genoa, blue Klein challenges 17th-century Bernardo Strozzi at Villa Croce

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