Modena, at the BPER Banca Gallery an exhibition on the figure of Psyche

The BPER Banca Gallery presents, in the spaces of its picture gallery in Modena, the exhibition project Psyche in the Mirror. Omnia vincit amor, curated by Daniela Ferrari. The exhibition can be visited from September 13, 2024 to February 9, 2025, opens to the public on the occasion of festivalfilosophy and develops an exploratory path around the theme of the XXIV edition of the festival:"psyche." The exhibition is proposed as a series of investigations into the nature of feelings through the mirror of myth and draws from the heritage held in BPER Banca’s corporate collection, presenting paintings by Francesco Albani and workshop, Sisto Badalocchio, Jean Boulanger, Lorenzo De Ferrari, Hendrik Frans Van Lint, Lorenzo Pasinelli, Giovanni Battista Paggi, and Guido Reni. The exhibition itinerary also includes etchings and aquatints by Max Klinger, oils on canvas by François Pascal Simon Gérard and Federico Zandomeneghi, and contemporary artworks created by Andrea Facco, Omar Galliani, and Andrea Mastrovito.

The exhibition opens with the 19th-century empire psyché from the Magnani Rocca Foundation in Mamiano di Traversetolo, one of the first mirrors capable of capturing the human figure in its entirety. “From the end of the nineteenth century,” writes Daniela Ferrari in her essay, “with the irruption of the quotidian elevated to a pictorial theme (...) the mirror conquers a starring role in the painted scene,” as witnessed by the work Fémme devant une psyché (The New or Yellow Robe), c. 1900, by Federico Zandomeneghi, featured in the exhibition.

A substantial nucleus of works is dedicated to the myth of Cupid and Psyche, Apuleius ’ fable contained in the Latin work The Metamorphoses. The focal point of the exhibition, on the other hand, is Amore dormiente (Sleeping Love), a masterpiece by Guido Reni created around 1620 and from the corporate collection of BPER Banca, which depicts a still-child Eros. Among the works in this section are Max Klinger ’s 25 etching and aquatint sheets from 1880 dedicated to Cupid and Psyche and the graphic works Eve and the Future and The Philosopher. Also present is François Pascal Simon Gérard’s work, Cupid and Psyche, from 1798, which represents an almost coeval version of slightly smaller dimensions than those of the same painting preserved at the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

Interventions by contemporary artists Andrea Facco, Omar Galliani and Andrea Mastrovito complete the exhibition. Andrea Facco brings to the exhibition The Butterflies of Zeus, a postcard depicting Jupiter Painting Butterflies, Mercury and the Virtues (1523-1524) by Dosso Dossi. Purchased in Florence during an exhibition, the postcard was transformed by Facco who painted over a reproduction of a postage stamp with the image of a butterfly, replicating the materiality and details of a postal seal. Omar Galliani, whose works are often connoted by literary, mythological and metaphorical narrative references, in the diptych Un mantra per Amore e Psiche captures the moment before the two lovers kiss in a moment of suspended intimacy, charged with emotional tension. Andrea Mastrovito presents instead, a lightbox entitled Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss containing a cover of “Playboy,” the historic U.S. magazine, on which Canova’s sculptural group Amore e Psiche is reproduced.

In addition to this, the BPER Banca Gallery presents engravings made with the P.I.A.F. (Minolta) technique, produced in collaboration with the Istituto dei Ciechi Francesco Cavazza of Bologna. The two works, designed for visually impaired visitors, reproduce Guido Reni’s Sleeping Cupid and François Pascal Simon Gérard’s Amore e Psiche, and will be accompanied by in-depth information usable via QR Code. The Psyche in the Mirror exhibition is accompanied by a catalog published by Sagep, containing the text by curator Daniela Ferrari, an essay by image theorist Andrea Pinotti and entries edited by Azzurra Lucia Calò, Nicoletta Colombo, Daniela Ferrari, Serena Ferrari, Alessandro Malinverni, Ilaria Negretti, Lucia Peruzzi, Luciano Rivi and Stefano Roffi. Proceeds from sales of the catalog will be donated to the Dynamo Camp ETS Foundation, which focuses its activities on the right to happiness of children and young people with serious or chronic illnesses, neurodevelopmental disorders or disabilities.

Modena, at the BPER Banca Gallery an exhibition on the figure of Psyche

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