A pleasant afternoon at the MA.GA Museum in Gallarate, a stone’s throw from Malpensa airport and 20 minutes from Milan. Among contemporary art projects, exhibitions of historic artists, relaxation spaces and a library with reading room
Until June 16th Contemporary Alphabet. The voice of the artists is exhibited – drawing on works from the permanent collection – at the MA*GA in Gallarate (Va), with a project created in collaboration with Sky Art and STORYVILLE, curated by Alessandro Castiglioni and Emma Zanella, broadcast on SkyArte from yesterday, Saturday 27 April until Saturday 4 May at 9.05 pm, also in streaming on NOW or on the arte.sky.tv web page.
The aim is to explain contemporary art in eight key words, each chosen from one of the works in the museum’s permanent collection: Threshold, City, Geography, Economy, Maze, Archaeology, Word And Light, and in this the local artists have been able to make the most of both the environment in its authenticity and afflicted by the problems of the century of industry.
The Arno is a very polluted stream; the quality of the water was judged to be very poor until around 2000.
In Gallarate, however, the presence of moorhens, frogs and fish testifies to better water quality. However, the problem of illegal dumping, which is sometimes evident, should not be underestimated: in January 2013 the Arnetta turned gray in the northern area of Gallarate precisely because of illegal dumping.
Luca Bertolo observed some microscopic aspects of the city’s ecosystem, collecting fragments of waste materials, organic finds, leaves and shells along the bed of the Arno stream. These laughable scraps become the subjects of a series of refined and evocative drawings.
This river is a feature of the city, and as such it has remained alive in the memories of all citizens, many of whom were included in a project that visited them in the local retirement home, dusting off the memory of some elderly people suffering from Alzheimer, who with difficulty and botched words described their most vivid memories of the adventures in the Arnetta.
The work is composed of short texts, the result of a reworking made by Cesare Pietroiusti starting from a series of recordings collected at the Assisted Healthcare Residences of Gallarate, then typed on yellowed paper, to evoke the difficulty in bringing these memories back to the surface and their fragile inconsistency worn out by time.
In 2016, a group of artistic high school students decided to amplify Pietroiusti’s work by transcribing sentences from the stories with chalk in the streets of Gallarate, keeping their memory high and leaving room for the emptiness of an unstable memory that is destined to be erased.
Private View is a project created to start a process of discovery, knowledge and vision of the natural landscape in relation to the urbanized one, a dialogue between the Arno torrent (small city watercourse) and Gallarate. He has in fact designed a route along the stream, the city stretch of the river course, which constitutes the hypothesis of a walk that can be enjoyed through a map and a series of portable seats, which can be collected free of charge at the MA*GA Museum ticket office.
With a map and stools, the public can travel along the river, discover the visions and perspectives highlighted by the artist and add their own personal Private Views to be delivered together with the sessions.
Massimo Bartolini intervenes instead – as Laura Cherubini states – “concealing and sublimating the efforts of planning and preparation”. It makes the classic symbol of a border, the entrance gate, light and tending towards infinity. Bartolini really manages to sublimate what can be considered a barrier, until the gates open, and the installation itself makes way for visitors, allowing the view to sweep over the architectural line of the museum and the surrounding landscape, where the poplar plants and the first sculptures, including a delicate Munari.
An unmissable exhibition is the solo exhibition by Davide Maria Coltro (Verona, 1967; lives between Milan and Lake Maggiore) entitled Media abstractionscheduled until 1 September 2024, is included in the activities of Museum in the Past-Digital Eraresearch promoted by the MA*GA and the Ministry of Culture for digital art.
The exhibition presents astonishing installations in which the media language between pixels and bits is left to harmoniously dance in separate but communicating structures, as if moved by the same “wave force” which seems one, but is the combination of the contamination of digital techniques and artistic.
THE Media Paintings they are characterized by a constantly changing abstract generative flow designed (and reworked) by the artist remotely, creating a painting “beyond the material”, that is, electronic.
To enrich with history and tradition we then find the new acquisitions ofArchive, from the Library and of some works Of Vittorio Tavernari, one of the most significant Italian and local sculptors. The exhibition is titled I would like to sculpt the universe and presents a collection of the artist’s documents and correspondence, and unexpected canvases with a strong spiritual appeal, which undoubtedly complete his work as a contemporary visual artist.
After leaving the MA*GA you can go to Piazza della Libertà, where “The fountain of crafts” by Vittorio Tavernari, created in 1955, is one of the works that most characterizes the historic center of Gallarate.
Initially intended to regulate car traffic, over time it has become the artistic image of Gallarate’s industriousness.
An unmissable day to remember all the local artists who have been able to enhance their place of origin, a stone’s throw from the Arno stream. Enjoy your visit!
