Viareggio dedicates an exhibition to Jean Michel Folon, the Belgian artist fascinated by the theme of travel

The Lorenzo Viani Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Viareggio is dedicating an exhibition to Jean-Michel Folon, the Belgian artist who died in 2005 with whom the city had a deep connection. The exhibition, curated by Massimo Marsili on an exhibition project by Paolo Riani, is intended precisely as a tribute to the artist who was fascinated by the theme of travel: born of the collaboration between the City Council, the Puccini Festival Foundation, the Carnival Foundation and the Folon Foundation, the exhibition traces in fact this recurring theme in his production, through more than seventy works including painting, sculpture and ceramics. The exhibition is intended to be a journey into the poetics of Folon traveler-witness par excellence who was able to transpose into painting and sculpture the dimension of travel in relation to time, place, man, space and life.

The solo exhibition Light Universes - Life is a Journey develops on three themes all related to travel: The Inner Journey, a section that illustrates the individual’s introspective search; The Difficulties of the Journey, which poses a confrontation with what is negative outside the self and the individual and sociopolitical dangers that the self may encounter; The Great Journey, which illustrates the journey through space and its interlocution with a conscious self, which derives values and authentic understanding of the world from the journey.

“Folon had a deep connection and fellowship with Viareggio,” declares Mayor Giorgio Del Ghingaro, “today the artist is hosted in the rooms of the Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in an exhibition itinerary that develops on three themes all related to travel. Travel declined in all its facets, in the infinite shades of light and in the multiple consistencies of matter.”

Finally, one room of the gallery is dedicated to the opera, Giacomo Puccini’s Bohème, which Folon had sketched in his works, signing for the Puccini Festival one of the most successful productions of the Sculpting the Opera project and for which he was awarded the Abbiati Prize.

Image: Jean Michel Folon, Partir (2002; bronze, 248 x 298 x 78 cm; Florence, Rose Garden)

Viareggio dedicates an exhibition to Jean Michel Folon, the Belgian artist fascinated by the theme of travel

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