ITALICS
The sorrow of the outcasts, or those speaking for them. Included artists who feel misinterpreted and consequently withdraw their works. A long series of preconceived stands, legal threats, assumptions of ideologism. On the invitation Francesco Clemente’s fist. All the above are the prior events, vain restlessness of particles before the opening of an exhibition triggering around itself vehement “spectacular” dispute. But finally Palazzo Grassi will open its shrine: organized with the collaboration of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago “Italics – Italian Art between tradition and revolution 1968-2008” is no more a secret: it will be open to the public until March 22 and it will then travel to the USA.
Curated by Francesco Bonami this block-buster exhibition is an arbitrary overview over forty years of artistic creation in the Italian peninsula. The presence of a unique curator able to choose on his own foreshadows a subjective and incomplete vision, one has to accept it, it is written in the very nature of things. Two images are used in the show, two movie stills taken from very controversial Italian films “Il divo” by Paolo Sorrentino and “Gomorra” by Matteo Garrone. Giulio Andreotti walking alone in a deserted landscape and two young “camorristi” standing on the beach with machine guns in their hands: “rails running parallel through forty years of Italian history, the title of the show rests on them” Bonami explains. Once again a film is asked to portray the complex events of forty years of history “I Vitelloni” by Fellini, where “a group of young people is unable to leave behind the leisure of a boring provincial life in order to start the necessary journey to discover life”. Possibly one more reference to the group of more than one hundred artists presented in the exhibition.
The title of the first show held in Palazzo Grassi, “Where are we Going?” seems more fit to such an attitude towards the world. Without ambiguity and with “special offer” intentions “Italics” means to give to “an international public the chance to discover an unknown territory, a great contemporary/ancient civilization still buried under the ashes of the political volcano erupted in 1968”, and moreover “psychoanalysis for Italian art in order to understand a history made of forgotten traumas”. First encounter in the exhibition is Maurizio Cattelan’s series of nine marble corpses covered by a veil: “a sculpture that draws a red line from art history to contemporary events: from Bernini to Iraqi falls. Going up the stairs one encounters two works by Gino De Dominicis: a rock and a self-portrait. Walking randomly without chronological order: Penone and his “Essere Fiume” (being River), a series of small “enfant-terrible” doodles by Vanessa Beecroft, women floating in restless poses by Margherita Manzelli, Gnoli and his works (a chair and an apple). Guttuso, Baj and Fabrizio Clerici with his fascination with the labyrinth. A late De Chirico, with Hellenic inspiration and a caption underlining his talent of “pictor optimus”. Ettore Sottssass and the creative possibilities of the pole. Gastone Novelli writing in 1968 “La biennale è Fascista” (the Biennale is fascist). Getullio Alviani’s “interrelazioni cromospeculari”. Luciano Fabro’s upside down golden Italy. Paola Pivi’s buttocks diptych. A few and well chosen videos: Monica Bonvicini’s contribution is a naked woman obstinately banging her head on the wall, Vezzoli’s Neo-baroque work and a few other things. Within the installations are a forest of psychedelic totems by Patrick Tuttofuoco, Pistoletto’s cage over possible infinites. Cattelan, once again, with a suicidal chipmunk in a miniature kitchen. Perrone’s “fusione della campana” (Bell casting). Speaking about the exhibition Bonami defines it as “Italics, the movie”.
