GAM Turin, new display '900 collection. Central to the work of art

New layout for the permanent collections of the twentieth century at GAM in Turin: the new exhibition itinerary, curated by Riccardo Passoni, aims to restore centrality to the work of art, placing them in reciprocal comparison.

Divided into nineteen spaces, the masterpieces are displayed according to an art-historical logic that follows the main artistic currents that followed one another in the twentieth century and with a special focus on the history of civic collections in the Turin, national and international art scene. From the desire to restore the value of certain artists, it was decided to dedicate personal rooms to them.

The first room is dedicated to Giorgio De Chirico, who generated a new way of thinking about the work of art, in search of a representation that was also philosophical unveiling; to Giorgio Morandi, who developed a cult of form and its unlimited variations, in a kind of conceptual discipline, with a continuity mental and temporal continuity that makes it possible to present, at the beginning of the itinerary, even his late still lifes; and finally to Filippo de Pisis, who handed down a lesson of total freedom from academic-type conditioning, but also from avant-garde choices, creating almost a solitary style-bridge between Impressionism and Informalism.

The following rooms trace some of the fundamental phases of art history represented by the collection’s masterpieces: from the historical avant-gardes with works by Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, Enrico Prampolini, Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Paul Klee and Francis Picabia, to the artistic proposals born in Turin between the two world wars; from the rediscovery and influence of Amedeo Modigliani on Turin artists thanks also to Lionello Venturi’s studies to the purchases of paintings and sculptures for the GAM collection between the late 1920s and the 1930s at the Venice Biennials and the Rome Quadrennial Exhibitions.

This is followed by the section devoted toItalian abstractionism, with artists such as Fausto Melotti, Osvaldo Licini and Lucio Fontana, while the next rooms trace the events in Rome and the Via Cavour school, investigate art after 1945 between figurative and abstract, and show the acquisitions of international art in the postwar period in the space entitled Per una Galleria Civica internazionale, where the protagonists are Marc Chagall, Hans Hartung, Pierre Soulages, Tal Coat, Pablo Picasso, Jean Arp, and Eduardo Chillida.

GAM also holds significant examples of experimental research, from theInformal years: from Carla Accardi, Giuseppe Capogrossi and Antonio Sanfilippo to the informal representation of landscape and nature by Renato Birolli, Ennio Morlotti and Vasco Bendini. The more radical Informal of Emilio Vedova and examples of Turin art involved in these dynamics with Piero Ruggeri, Sergio Saroni, Giacomo Soffiantino, or Paola Levi Montalcini.

New Dada and Italian and foreign Pop Art, represented by Piero Manzoni, Louise Nevelson, Yves Klein, and Andy Warhol, will give way to a renewed framework of concepts and materials. After a transition to the Experimental Museum of Contemporary Art, which arrived as a gift in late 1965 to the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, consisting of a collection that now numbers 364 works intended to represent linguistic options of innovative and experimental slant, the new layout culminates inArte Povera: Pier Paolo Calzolari, Mario Merz, Giuseppe Penone, Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Gilberto Zorio.

Solo rooms are dedicated to Felice Casorati, Arturo Martini, Alberto Burri, and Lucio Fontana.
Finally, Giulio Paolini was given space for pointing out the need to always maintain a necessitating relationship with art history, its signs and references, and their value for a conceptual vivification of form.

Pictured is the new installation of the Novecento collection at GAM in Turin, Italy, The Primacy of the Work. Ph.Credit Robino

GAM Turin, new display '900 collection. Central to the work of art

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.