In Albissola and Savona, the ancient and the contemporary in the sign of Michelangelo

On the occasion of the exhibition Michelangelo: divine artist at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, the main museum centers of Albissola Marina and Savona will pay tribute to the great artist with the exhibition Around Michelangelo: Renaissance treasures of Albissola and Savona in dialogue with contemporary sculpture by Andrea Salvatori.

It will follow the places of Savona’s two pontiffs, Sixtus IV and Julius II, where the latter lived and worked in the 15th century, through the works of art, architecture and history associated with Renaissance artists, among them Michelangelo. Buonarroti was in fact called in 1508 by Julius II to decorate the Sistine Chapel commissioned by Sixtus IV.

The exhibition stems from the desire to revitalize the reflection on this artistic heritage through a dialogue with contemporary art: along the architectural and artistic path linked to the popes of Savona will be included sculptures by Andrea Salvatori (Faenza, 1975), which arise from a continuous comparison with the images of the art of the past, including that of Michelangelo.

On Bruciati Hill, which today is part of the municipality of Albissola Marina but in the 15th century fell under the jurisdiction of Savona, are two ancient buildings that now constitute the Jorn House Museum. Despite the uncertainty of the sources, it is documented that it was in one of those buildings that Giuliano della Rovere, the future Pope Julius II (1443-1513), grew up (or perhaps was even born). By a fortuitous coincidence, those same buildings became in 1957 the home and studio of the Danish artist Asger Jorn, who transformed them into a total work of art that today constitutes the Jorn House Museum (one of the venues of MuDA the Albissola Marina Museum of Diffuse Art).

In Savona, next to the present Cathedral, is preserved the Sistine Chapel, so named because, like the better-known one built in Rome, it was commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV in order to enshrine here the tombs of his own parents. Nearby is also one of the main examples of the patronage of the then Bishop Giuliano della Rovere (nephew of Sixtus IV): the wooden choir conceived for the ancient Cathedral on the Priamàr and later transferred to the present Duomo. In the Art Museum of Palazzo Gavotti, in the spaces of the Pinacoteca Civica, masterpieces of Renaissance art related to the della Rovere patronage are then preserved. The rooms where Salvatori’s two sculptures have been installed house the impressive polyptychs, including Vincenzo Foppa’s Fornari Altarpiece, Madonna and Child Enthroned (1489) and Giovanni Mazone’s Nativity (c. 1473-75), which testify to the artistic flowering of the city between the 15th and 16th centuries due to the patronage of the two Savona popes.

Andrea Salvatori’s sculptures on the theme of Michelangelo’s David will be the symbolic link between the various venues of the mosra Intorno a Michelangelo, from the Ducal Palace to the Sistine Chapel. The exhibition will feature a wide selection of the artist’s ceramic production, which can also be seen additionally in the Jorn House Museum, the rooms of the Pius VII Apartments and Palazzo Gavotti in Savona, the MuDA Exhibition Center and the new Lavanderia Gallery (Angelo Ruga Association) in Albissola Marina.

The exhibition is curated by Luca Bochicchio and is open to the public from October 10, 2020 to January 24, 2021.

For info: https://www.amicidicasajorn.it/intorno-michelangelo-mostra/

Ph.Credit Omar Tonella

In Albissola and Savona, the ancient and the contemporary in the sign of Michelangelo

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