Magazzino Italian Art opens Robert Olnick Pavilion. Schifano, Spalletti and Scarpa the first 3 exhibitions

Starting September 14, 2023, the Robert Olnick Pavilion of Magazzino Italian Art, the museum in the United States that focuses on Italian art from the mid-20th century to the contemporary, will open to the public. The new building was designed by Spanish architects Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo and will expand Magazzino’s cultural offerings through its 1,200 square meters of exhibition space. The symbol of the new pavilion will be the isotropic hall, designed by Alberto Campo Baeza: a cube, perforated at each corner by square-shaped windows that generate a constantly changing flow of light and shadow.

Inaugurating the new pavilion will be three exhibitions: an overview of the pioneering work of the 1960s and 1970s by Mario Schifano (1934-1998); an installation of paintings and sculptures by Ettore Spalletti (1940-2019) in the isotropic room; and a selection of Murano glass masterpieces by Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) from the collection of Magazzino’s founders, Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu.

On view through Jan. 8, 2024, Mario Schifano: The Rise of the ’60s is the first major retrospective in the United States to offer a comprehensive overview of Mario Schifano’s work during the decade 1960-1970. Eighty works are on view, most of them on loan from major international collections, including twelve from the Maurizio Calvesi Foundation and never before exhibited.

Organized by Magazzino Italian Art, in collaboration with the Archivio Mario Schifano and curated by Alberto Salvadori, the exhibition is presented on the sixtieth anniversary of Schifano’s first visit to the United States and includes works made beginning in the early 1960s as a tribute to Italian poster painters. Through their ability to play with color by elaborating on the logos of companies such as Coca-Cola and Esso, these works represent a parallel and independent development from American Pop art. Other series of works, such as monochromes, emulsified canvases devoted to TV Landscapes and photographs of travels to the United States, will also be exhibited. While sensitive to the currents of the moment, Schifano has developed for his entire career an original and independent artistic point of view and practice, also drawing continuously from the works of historical artists, including Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Leonardo da Vinci, Piero della Francesca and Kazimir Malevich.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication Schifano: The Rise of the ’60s, curated by Alberto Salvadori, Lara Conte and Francesco Guzzetti, with texts by Alberto Salvadori, Andrea Cortellessa, Claire Gilman, Daniela Lancioni, Francesco Guzzetti, Giorgia Gastaldon, Giuliana Bruno, Lara Conte, Luciano Chessa, Raphael Rubinstein, Riccardo Venturi and Stefano Chiodi.

Also on view through Jan. 8, 2024, is Ettore Spalletti: Words of Color, an exhibition project specially conceived for the new Pavilion by the Ettore Spalletti Foundation and Alberto Salvadori in collaboration with architect Alberto Campo Baeza, which includes five works by Spalletti placed in the isotropic room.

On display are three large monochromatic wall works-Be It or Not So, Pink; So, Pink; Be It or Not So, Light Blue-created in 2009 with layered colors, ritually applied in the same way and at the same time of day, and compared with the sculpture Column in the Void, from 2019, a column made from a painted wooden centina that, in dialogue with Campo Baeza’s architecture, appears as a symbol, a possible source of reinterpretation and innovation in the relationship between art and architecture. Next to the paintings and the column are Disco, from 1981, a black lacquered wood work inserted into one of the walls. Disco introduces a magical and asymmetrical element into the space, a disruptive presence that suggests and expands the sense of the sublime.

Words of Color stems from a reflection on the relationship between Ettore Spalletti’s works and the space specifically designed by Alberto Campo Baeza; a space that gives the feeling of being in a sacred, mystical and ascetic place.

We thank for their generous support of the project Ettore Spalletti: words of color: Marian Goodman Gallery, Lia Rumma Gallery and Vistamare Gallery.

Until March 31, 2025, however, the exhibition Carlo Scarpa: Timeless Masterpieces, which presents a selection of fifty-six Murano glass works from the Olnick Spanu Collection, is on view. Curated by Marino Barovier, the exhibition aims to reconstruct the celebrated architect’s creative journey from 1926 to 1947, a period in which he collaborated with the two most important Murano furnaces of the time, M.V.M. Cappellin & Co. and Venini.

“The term masterpieces,” says Marino Barovier, “is the most appropriate for these pieces of glass, because they are extraordinary works for the quality of their design and material; works that have made the history of the glassworks where they were made and of reference for the artistic panorama of twentieth-century Murano glass.”

To date, the Olnick Spanu Collection includes 596 Murano glass works created by 43 artists and designers. The Olnick Spanu Collection holds as many as 156 masterpieces by Scarpa, a number that makes it one of the world’s largest collections of the Venetian architect and designer’s works. The exhibition includes the Pasta vitrea series, created between 1929 and 1930 and characterized by brilliant colors, materiality and the application of gold leaf. Among the glass works created for Venini, notable examples include a vase and cup from the Black and Red Lacquer series of 1940, whose distinctive color gives them the appearance of Chinese lacquers.

“Scarpa in the kiln looks at everything, is curious and thirsty for knowledge, wants to handle the material, change its appearance, colors, shapes,” Barovier writes. “The journey takes place discreetly alongside master glassmakers who have the experience, know the tricks of an ancient craft rooted in tradition handed down from master to master. But he himself becomes a master: he initiates long conversations with the artisans, especially with the masters Ferdinando Toso called Fei and Arturo Biasutto called Boboli, with whom he establishes a privileged relationship, stimulates research, opens the way to unexpected proposals.”

For info: https://www.magazzino.art/

Image: Robert Olnick Pavilion, Magazzino Italian Art.

Photo by William Mulvihill. Courtesy MQ Architecture.

Magazzino Italian Art opens Robert Olnick Pavilion. Schifano, Spalletti and Scarpa the first 3 exhibitions

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