Giorgio de Chirico, Antonio Ligabue, Paul Kostabi, Michele Cascella, Michele Cassinari, Cesare Berlingeri, Massimo Catalani, Luca Dall’Olio, Marco Lodola, Max Marra, Paolo Porelli, Pietro Annigoni, Franz Borghese, Bruno Caruso. There are several important names represented in the exhibition Civic Visionsscheduled from June 18th to July 28th at Monumental Complex of San Domenicoin Lamezia Terme. The project’s subtitle itself clarifies its intent, which appeals to “Art returned. From the works confiscated from the mafias to the common good”. For the artists mentioned above, the mafias in question must have had a weakness: the 44 works exhibited in Lamezia, in fact, come from the private collections of two well-known local bosses, the “king of video poker” Gioacchino Campolo and the financier close to the Banda della Magliana Gennaro Mokbel.
The exhibition with the works of art confiscated from the mafias in Lamezia Terme
Seized by the police and today in the possession of the Confiscated Assets Agency and the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, these collections suggest the attachment to art of the mafiosi-collectors, apparently unable to resist the temptation to add a piece valuable to their collections, as a function of a status to be validated through the possession of “precious” goods (but also with a recognizable personal taste). This illicit collecting activity, because it is financed by criminal business, is responsible for the accumulation of important collections, including established artists and emerging authors, unique works or print runs of graphics, paintings and sculptures, installations and multi-material works. And the exhibition curated by the professor Lorenzo Canova shares them with the community in the name of “symbolic force of the visual arts, within a space of legality and civic sharing”.
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The Trame Foundation and the Festival of books on the mafia in Lamezia Terme
Furthermore, the project is promoted by the Trame Foundation (along with theMetaMorfosi Associationwith the patronage of the Ministry of the Interior and the support of the CDP Foundation, a non-profit organization of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Group) which has been involved in the organization of the Festival of books on mafias Trame, which since 2011 has welcomed over 10 thousand visitors every year, in the name of a Calabria that does not want to remain silent, but denounce the mafias. The thirteenth edition of the event – which, under the artistic direction of Giovanni Tizian, involves writers, journalists, magistrates and scholars, bringing them to the squares of Lamezia Terme to discuss and present books dedicated to the phenomenon of the mafia, thus giving public testimony of ethical commitment – will take the moves from the exhibition hosted in the headquarters of the city’s archaeological museum, inaugurating its six days on June 18th (the schedule lasts until the 23rd of the month; theme for 2024: For future reference).
Art and civic commitment: a return to the community and a warning against the mafias
Among the works on display, those belonging to Gennaro Mokbel, seized in 2010, will be on display for the first time; while the nucleus from the seizure from Gioacchino Campolo is today in the collections of Palazzo Crupi, in Reggio Calabria. “Among the confiscations” explains Canova “there are not only works by important masters of Italian and international art between the 20th and 21st centuries, but also fake paintings”, like the counterfeiting of a painting by Giorgio Morandi, which probably also misled the mafia boss at the time of purchase. The exhibition aims to keep attention high on the activities of the mafias “at a time when the perception of their dangerousness seems to have decreased”, he explains Nuccio Iovenepresident of the Trame Foundation: “We want to give a real representation of the mafias, also regarding their ability to get their hands on businesses and in apparently distant sectors, such as the art market, which can also help them launder illicit proceeds, diversifying their investments”.
What made the realization of the project possible – in addition to the availability of the director of the Lametino Archaeological Museum, Simona Bruni – was the MetaMorfosi association, which produced and organized the exhibition, with the will, explains the president Pietro Folena,”to combine the production of classic and contemporary exhibitions with a civic vocation, identifying in the exhibitions and dissemination of art and culture an extraordinary lever against illegality, crime, mafias and every form of abuse and arrogance”.
The program of Trame Festival 2024: “To future memory”
Among the events to be discovered in the square, however, we highlight the focus on satire with Lo Statale Jonico, the presentation of the book Figli Traditori by Arcangelo Badolati, the meetings on memory with the journalist Diego Bianchi and Don Ciotti, the memory of the trade unionists killed for the their fight for workers’ rights and social justice, the in-depth analysis of Giacomo Matteotti on the centenary of his killing. We will then talk about eco-mafias, international trafficking, heroes and anti-heroes, violence against women.
Livia Montagnoli
Here is the complete program of Trame Festival 2024
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