Milan, an exhibition explores the relationship between Mario Schifano and Gianni Malabarba. Painting and poetry meet

BKV Fine Art gallery in Milan will host an exhibition dedicated to Mario Schifano (Homs, 1934 - Rome, 1998) and Gianni Malabarba (1934 - 1998) from Feb. 28 to April 17, 2025. Under the title Mario Schifano - Gianni Malabarba. Painting and Poetry, the exhibition aims to explore the deep relationship of friendship and collaboration that united the artist and the poet and collector. The exhibition, curated by Marco Meneguzzo and produced in collaboration with theMario Schifano Archive, presents 73 completely new works from Malabarba’s family’s private collection. The choice of works also reveals the interaction between painting and poetry, two artistic expressions that became contaminated through the bond between the two protagonists.

The heart of the exhibition consists of 64 works on paper, spanning the artist’s entire career, ranging from Futurism revisited to Landscapes, from Envelopes to Projects. The central element of this exhibition is the possibility of discovering a lesser-known part of Schifano’s production: his works on paper, which offer a new insight into the painter’s artistic journey. The papers, divided into thematic nuclei, cover different moments and styles of his career and show how Schifano continued to develop his art in other media and on different supports.

The relationship between Schifano and Malabarba, which developed around the 1970s, is a focal point of the exhibition. Malabarba was a collector, but also a poet who sought to enact a synthesis of the arts, where word and painting became a single form of expression. The poet sent his poems to Schifano, and the artist used them as inspiration for some of his works. The synergy between the two art forms is evident in three emulsion canvases from the 1970s, which were directly inspired by Malabarba’s poems. These canvases, never exhibited before, are a clear example of how the contamination between different expressive media can give rise to a unified and complex creative process. Their relationship develops in a very specific cultural context: post-World War II Milan, a city that saw the interweaving of different artistic disciplines, with sculptors, painters, writers and poets constantly confronting each other, giving rise to a true intellectual contamination. In this environment, Schifano and Malabarba shared a profound bond, which resulted in a dialogue between their respective arts. Numerous poetic compositions, original typescripts by Gianni Malabarba, will also be part of the exhibition.

Another aspect of the exhibition is the inclusion of six photographic self-portrait prints by Mario Schifano, which refer to his large works centered on the human figure, represent a reflection on the image of the artist, his role in society and his existential condition.

The exhibition is accompanied by a limited and numbered edition catalog, edited by Marco Meneguzzo. A Catalogo Ragionato dell’Opera Pittorica 1960-1969 di Schifano, a monograph with critical texts by Marco Meneguzzo and Monica Schifano, is scheduled for publication in 2025.

“This exhibition,” says Meneguzzo, “and the essay in the catalog seek to remedy this small oversight in the history of Italian collecting and Schifano’s biography, bringing to light the importance of Malabarba and his uniqueness in the ”way“-as well as the importance-of collecting contemporary art.”

For info: www.bkvfineart.com
Hours: Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays by appointment

Photo arrangements: Maria Parmigiani.

Milan, an exhibition explores the relationship between Mario Schifano and Gianni Malabarba. Painting and poetry meet

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