Giancarlo Vitali has crossed the painting of the twentieth century, a dense journey into the meanders of contemporary representation, between color and form, surface and depth. In his long research, he had the opportunity to deal with the international art environment, on the occasion of many exhibitions abroad and in Italy, up to the one presented at Palazzo Reale in Milan, in 2017, the year before his death. , visited by over 80 thousand people. But in this parable, one point has always remained firm: the eastern shore of Lake Como and, precisely, Bellano, place of birth – on 29 November 1929 -, of life and work, whose atmospheres often return in his works . And today, Bellano remembers this artist who was both tenaciously local and with a broad perspective, with the Giancarlo Vitali Museum, whose project was previewed right at Palazzo Reale. Created by ArchiViVitali ETS thanks to the support of donors and the contribution of the Cariplo Foundation, the new museum headquarters will be inaugurated on Friday, 29 November 2024, the anniversary of the artist’s birth, in via Alessandro Manzoni 50.
On the occasion of the presentation, the donation of two important works to the Municipality of Milan was also signed. The Municipality of Milan already has 45 precious engravings by Giancarlo Vitali in its collections, donated on the occasion of the exhibition organized by the Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli del Castello Sforzesco in 1994, when the first catalog raisonné of his engraved work was also created (1980- 1993); in the city collections there are also two portraits of benefactors in the Ca’ Granda Picture Gallery.
The antibodies of the earth
«The antibodies matured within his land, following nothing other than his own vocation, allow him an ethical disenchantment with the contradictions of today’s man», he wrote of him Mario Botta. Vitali began painting at the age of 15, after a period of work at the Institute of Graphic Arts in Bergamo, but the turning point came in 1983, when Giovanni Testori, after having accidentally seen the reproduction of one of his paintings, visited him. From this meeting a relationship of mutual esteem and friendship was to arise, which would last until the writer’s death in 1993.
Testori writes about Vitali in very high tones, dedicating an entire page in Il Corriere della Sera entitled “discovery” of the artist The glories of paintingand he himself will curate his first solo exhibition in Milan in 1985. Vitali, on the other hand, dedicated several portraits to his writer friend and two of these, Testori’s eyes (1986) e Portrait of Testori (1986), will be donated by the Vitali family to the Municipality of Milan – Modern and Contemporary Art Museum Area on the occasion of the opening of the Museum.
«His language certainly constantly mixes realism with expressionism, in an entirely Italian way, now with tragic and dramatic tones, now with more ironic and humorous accents», we wrote in a review of the 2013 exhibition at Palazzo del Broletto in Como .
The Giancarlo Vitali Museum, a place of experimentation, rooted in the territory
The headquarters of the Giancarlo Vitali Museum will be in the historic residence of Palazzo Lorla in Bellano, as part of a broader redevelopment program of some historic spaces in the town overlooking the banks of the Lario, the BAC – Bellano Arte Cultura, a one kilometer itinerary and 200 meters which includes historical and naturalistic monuments and exhibition spaces, starting from the Orrido, a natural gorge that dates back to the glacial era, which can be explored via walkways anchored to the rock at a height of approximately 50 meters from the Pioverna River bed. Still within the BAC, the San Nicolao space will also reopen in September, completely restored to host contemporary art exhibitions.
The project for the new Museum was born following the donation of an important group of works (about a hundred paintings, as many drawings and the entire corpus engraving which has 560 sheets) by the Vitali family to the Municipality of Bellano and the ArchiViVitali ETS Association, which brings together the archives of Giancarlo Vitali himself, with the aim of establishing a permanent study center and an exhibition design laboratory aimed at dialogue between the languages of the modern and the contemporary. The permanent exhibition will consist of over 100 works created by the great painter and engraver, a selection from his very rich production of paintings, drawings and engravings created in 70 years of activity. Devoted to experimentation but rooted in the territory, as is the method most suited to Vitali himself, the Museum presents itself «As a dynamic space, where Vitali’s lesson is intertwined with the experiences of the new generations, and where the encounter between past memory and future vision activates virtuous connections”, they explain from the museum.
The architectural project
The project, curated by Vitali Studio, traces a heterogeneous exhibition itinerary in close dialogue with the pre-existing architectural elements to which visibility and function is restored with the aim of not dispersing the relationship of empathy and authenticity that historically links this building to Bellano. Giancarlo Vitali’s works, exhibited with an alternating rhythm and remodeled by unexpected geometries, establish dialogues and contrasts between existing elements and new environments, helping to redefine an alternation of apparently different places and characters, focused with irony and unusual points of view, traceable from different angles.
The exit towards the garden invites the visitor to stop in front of a large wall painting surrounded by greenery and, at the same time, opens the gaze towards a clear sobriety of the house which overlooks the park towards the east, up to the hill in the direction of Horrid.
The external facades, the entrance hall, and the small baroque staircase are the distinctive elements of the building and bear traces of the last eighteenth-century interventions which outline the original character of the building in which the museum is now located.
