Extended horizons. From Felice Casorati to Vanessa Beecroft
Press release
26 February 2004 - Palazzo Forti, Verona
This is a journey through the works of the gallery's collection permitting the visitor to view both previously acquired works as well as the most recent additions.
The works by Vanessa Beecroft, Deborah Hirsch, Jaune Plensa, Botto & Bruno, Robert Gligorov, John Isaacs, Giovanni Sesia, Cindy Sherman, Olga Tobreluts, Spencer Tunick, Bill Viola, and Chen Zhen also allow the possibility of seeing some of the most recent international artistic inquiries.
This section is completed by equally important works by Roberto Barni, Matteo Basile, Louise Bourgeois, Loris Cecchini, Dormice, Catherine Doyle, John Hamilton Finlay, Donata Lazzarini, David Ligare, Carlo Maria Mariani, Giulio Paolini, Paola Pezzi, Vanessa Jane Phaff, Fabrizio Plessi, Graziano Pompili, Sergio Regalzi, Bernardi Roig, Sara Rossi, Jim Shaw, Francesco Vezzoli, Antonio Violetta, Italo Zuffi.
The collection also shows us works from the recent and still influential past, i.e. the experiences of Minimalism and of the 1960s and 70s: Gino De Domenicis, Sol LeWitt, Josseph Kosuth, Richard Tuttle, Rodolfo Aricò, Vittorio Guarnieri, Giuseppe Uncini, Giorgio Olivieri, and Claudio Verna.
The show is also the opportunity for seeing the installation by Medhat Shafik La dimora del poeta, The Poet's Dwelling, 2003, donated to Palazzo Forti and specially created for the so-called Rose Room. Shafik, an Egyptian artist who has lived in Italy since 1976, was awarded the Leone d'Oro prize at the 1995 Venice Biennale. An internationally known painter and sculptor, he is a ingenious alchemist in mixing materials and techniques, and he manages to wed allusions to the East with the most up-to-date western avant-garde methods.
The new show, which will remain open to the public for six months, also gives due attention to artists by now accepted as part of modern art history, such as Birolli, Casorati, De Pisis, Guidi, Guttuso, Paolucci, Romagnoni, Scipione, Semeghini, Sironi, Soffici, Soldati, Tancreedi, Tosi, Turcato, and Vedova.
A special section aims at re-evaluating Veronese culture of the 1920s, with such protagonists as Beraldini, Nardi, Trentini, Zamboni, and Zancolli. A brief but concentrated section is dedicated to the languages employed at the end of the 19th century and which anticipated the cultural ferment in Verona in the first two decades of the twentieth century: Dall'Oca Bianca, De Stefani, Longoni, Morbelli, and Savini.
The exhibition covers two floors of the extensive spaces of Palazzo Forti and is hung in such a way as to create 'dialogues' between the most advanced languages and the atmospheric architectural spaces of this ancient building.
We are preparing a catalogue raisonnée of the works in the collection to be published by Marsilio Editori. The first volume should be ready by April 2004 and is dedicated to recent acquisitions.
Inauguration: 26th February 2004 at 5.30 p.m., Palazzo Forti