GALLARATE – Sunday 28 April, on Sorceress of Gallarate opens to the public three new exhibitions which offer an insight into the research of Vittorio Tavernari, one of the most important Italian sculptors after the Second World War, and Davide Maria Coltro, pioneer and master of technological experimentation. Added to this is the rearrangement of the permanent collection born from the video production Contemporary Alphabetin collaboration with Sky Arte.
The 50th in Italy
The three exhibitions were presented this morning in the presence of the mayor Andrea Cassaniof the Councilor for Culture Claudia Mazzettiof the director of Maga Emma Zanellaof the conservative Alessandro Castiglioni and the acting president Luigi Mascheroni perfectly at ease in the role of the master of the house. “In a different role, as a correspondent for my newspaper, I was present on the day of the inauguration of the Maga,” he said. «Since then I have had a very deep relationship with this museum».
This is a new exhibition season of great interest for Maga which, according to data published in the April issue of The Art Journalwith 139,346 visitorsis positioned at 50th place among the most popular museums in Italy and among the first among those of contemporary art. «We are climbing the rankings», underlined Mazzetti. «We strongly believe in this institution and as an administration we continue to support it».
Tavernari’s sculptures
Until 1 September 2024, the MA*GA presents the important acquisition of the Archive, the Library and some works by Vittorio Tavernari (1919-1987), which took place thanks to the financing of the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture through the PAC – Plan for Contemporary Art 2023 tender, won by the MA*GA Museum.
The exhibition, curated by Emma Zanella and Alessandro Castiglioniwhose title I would like to sculpt the universe follows that of an article written by Tavernari himself in the magazine “Epoca” in 1951, offers works and documents part of the Archive which delve into some national and international initiatives in which the artist participates as an absolute protagonist, bringing his language into dialogue with the dynamics and the cultural transformations of its era and is part of the exhibition program of Italia 2050, Research Center for Italian Art 1950-2050, founded by MA*GA in 2023.
The desire to enhance the heritage of one of the most significant Italian sculptors of the 20th century led to the project of acquiring a very precious corpus, preserved in the MA*GA deposits since April 2024, consisting of autographed letters, photographs and photographic plates, from the catalog of works and the artist’s complete bibliography, from his personal library, as well as a precious collection of works that the artist has always kept for himself. Some of the most prestigious voices of Italian criticism appear among the letters and publications, including Francesco Arcangeli, Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, Marco Valsecchi and Mario De Micheli.
The exhibition itinerary opens with a reference to two significant episodes for the city of Gallarate: Tavernari’s participation in the second edition of the National Visual Arts Award City of Gallarate in 1951 and the creation of the Fountain of Piazza Libertà, sculpted by the artist in cut directed in 1955.
A section analyzes his experience, which took place between 1962 and 1963, at the MOMA in New York, where he exhibited the Torso from 1961, a large sculpture acquired for the permanent collections of the New York Museum, alongside works by Frank Stella, Daniel Spoerri, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Joan Miró.
The following year, in 1963, Tavernari was invited by Luigi Carluccio to the XXXII Venice International Art Biennial with a personal room consisting of 11 sculptures.
A decade later, in 1972, the artist participated in the Contemporary Italian Sculpture curated by the Quadrennial itself, hosted by institutions such as the Hanoke Open Air museum in Japan, the Museum of Modern Art of Mexico Citythe Alten Museum in Berlin and the National Art Gallery in Athens.
In 1973, Tavernari was at the Musée Rodin in Paris with an anthology, curated by Monique Laurent, which definitively established the sculptor on the European art scene. The exhibition consisted of 131 works including sculptures, watercolors and drawings, capable of retracing the evolution of his investigation from the early 1950s to the end of the 1960s.
The digital coulter
Davide Maria Coltro’s solo exhibition (Verona, 1967; lives and works between Milan and Lake Maggiore), entitled Media abstractionscheduled until September 1, 2024is part of the program of activities of the Museum in the Post-Digital Era supported by the 2021 Culture Fund of the Ministry of Culture, and is the new chapter of the research promoted by the MA*GA on digital art.
The exhibition, curated by Alessandro Castiglioni and with the critical contribution of Elena Pontiggia, presents the most recent production by Davide Maria Coltro in which the media language, characteristic of his most authentic style, takes on new abstract and synthetic connotations, capable of highlighting the relationships among the fundamental elements of electronic painting, such as bit And pixelsin a code he himself defined as “painting beyond matter”.
The exhibition itinerary is made up of a series of new installations, specifically designed and built for the museum spaces, in which the Media Paintings they are characterized by a constantly changing abstract generative flow designed by the artist remotely.
The rooms of the MA*GA thus become a place of silent meditation in which the contemplation of evolving images brings the public closer to a meditative and private dimension. This aspect will then acquire a further meaning within the Gallarate city fabric: Coltro’s works will be transmitted in the digital totems of city communication, re-proposing the concept of “Civic Framework” that the artist had already presented in Shanghai, China, in 2006.
Sky cameras
Until June 16, 2024, Contemporary Alphabet. The voice of the artists proposes the rearrangement of the permanent collection of the MA*GA, born from the video production of the same namein collaboration with Sky Arte.
The program, created by STORYVILLE with the care of Alessandro Castiglioni and Emma Zanella, is part of the project The Museum in the Post Digital Era – Culture Fund 2021, Ministry of Culture.
The initiative aims to explain eight key words of contemporary art, each chosen starting from a work and an artist from the MA*GA collection: Threshold, City, Geography, Economy, Maze, Archaeology, Word And Light are the words that accompany the narratives of Massimo Bartolini, Paola Di Bello, Ottonella Mocellin and Nicola Pellegrini, Marzia Improve, Riccardo Arena, Michele Ciacciofera, Cesare Pietroiusti and Chiara Dynys.
Around these eight short documentaries one series of works, always coming from the Museum’s collections, broadens the reflection, offering new ideas for understanding the visual culture of our time. On show, historical creations by artists such as Atanasio Soldati, Emilio Isgrò, Irma Blank, dialogue with the works of contemporary protagonists, including Jacopo Miliani, Chiara Camoni and Marina Ballo Charmet.
The episodes of Contemporary Alphabet will be broadcast by Sky Arte starting from Saturday 27 April 2024 at 9.05 pm for eight consecutive evenings, also in streaming on NOW and in free streaming for everyone on the arte.sky.it web page.
Sunday 28 April, on the first day of opening to the public, entry to the exhibitions will be free and offered by Ricola, main partner of the MA*GA which has supported the Museum’s activities since 2017. Throughout the day, it will also be possible to taste the beneficial Ricola herbal teas at the MA*GAbar.
Gallarate museum exhibitions 2024 – MALPENSA24
Tags: Gallarate exhibitions Maga #50th visited museum Italy
