Vigevano: Memo Fornasari. Memorabilia – Contemporary art exhibition in Lombardy

“The Memorabilia” Of Memo Fornasari presented at the “C. Ottone” Civic Museum of Vigevano, opens on Saturday 4 May at 5.00 pm. They are exposed one thirty works among the most significant belonging to the two main cycles – “Galaxies” And “Color X-rays” – created by the multifaceted artist Domenico Memo Fornasari (Mantua 1910 – Verona 1982). The exhibition, which enjoys the patronage of the Municipality of Vigevano, remains open to the public until May 30, 2024.

So the curator Carlo Micheli:
“Domenico Fornasari is a true painter who pays in equal measure for his artistic eclecticism and inadequate criticism. A distracting ductility that takes him now on the path of cinema, now in the world of design; a criticism that before making him gropes between narcissistic ramblings and useless definitions of his galaxies, incapable of proposing a comparison that brings out the affinities with the greats of his time.

Yet those futuristic forms of his speak of a cultured, avant-garde painting, attentive to the spatialism of Fontana, but also to Vedova, Turcato, Corpora. This exhibition intends to induce a reflection on Fornasari’s artistic values, not so much to claim records or advances, but rather to affirm how the artist from Mantua was there, among the greats, at the right time, in those 50s and 60s in which the greatest names in Contemporary Art flourished.

In 1973, from the pages of “Resto del Carlino”, Marino Mercuri posed a fundamental problem: “Fornasari – it must be said – was not discovered: his artistic seasons are not easily graspable for a correct, more reliable interpretation. (…) He came out by the legion of followers of Futurism with incredible breakthroughs that were not reported by critics. And again “But how should Fornasari be seen compared to painters like Adami, Pozzati, Pistoletto, Schifano?” and Fornasari occurred at the exhibition that the latter held in Recanati, Mercuri himself states that the few lines written by Guidi (“She placed many artistic events of the century in her work, dominating them with mastery”) are to be considered the most in-depth criticism that Fornasari could then boast.

Of the countless personal exhibitions held all over the world, all that remains are scant, superficial and botched brochures. There is therefore an urgent need for an in-depth re-examination of the work of this restless and brilliant artist, a rereading that finally gives him credit, placing him among the protagonists of his era.… read the rest of the article”