Tribute to Giorgio Morandi (group exhibition) - Bologna 13-25 October 2012

“Omaggio a Giorgio Morandi” group ehibition with the artist Karim Carella

10 October 2012

WIKIARTE GALLERY, Bologna Via San Felice 18

13-25 October 2012

“I no longer have everything that has been written about me, as if a wind had blown it away ….”

Giorgio Morandi carries this statement throughout his being, because he remains the most surprising artist on the contemporary art scene in the mid-twentieth century. In this period, characterized by the tendency to go beyond form, Morandi, with its bottles, flowers and landscapes of the Tuscan-Emilian countryside, seems to belong to other times, better still, out of time, with its ancient but indelible images.

The radical supra-temporality, the displacement with respect to the times is the most characteristic strength of the Bolognese artist. It is no coincidence that the city that sees it born is the perfect stage since it has always been multifaceted and “out of phase” between the multiple cultures that compose it.

It is the same city that today, right in his heart, pays homage to his most extemporaneous and undoubtedly unique artist. The Wikiarte Gallery, in the center of Bologna, gathers thirteen artists, thirteen lost styles to remember and tell Morandi. But style has never been decisive for him. The first attempt to link his expressive language to Futurism only provoked irritation. The compositional bond with Cezanne and the surreal one with De Chirico are only consequential. The style, the belonging to a specific current has never interested the great Bolognese. Therefore, this is the reason that makes the Tribute to Giorgio Morandi possible in the Wikiarte Gallery.

The thirteen artists recount the importance of the Morandian lesson in stylistically lost ways, but common in vision.

The living nature, which Morandi sees in flowers and landscapes, is also the one that lives in the transparent works of Paolo Beretti, in the neo-scapigliato Massimo Renzi, in the purist frescoes by Gianpaolo Marchesi and in the floral puzzle by Francesco Caruso, as in essential and almost graphic nature from the photographs by Karim Carella and in the stylized and cubist one by Roberto Tomba. Still life, experienced by Morandi in the pure simplicity of the object, is reborn with the same sensitivity in the vases of Paolo Remondini, in the sharp graphic lines of Paolo Berti, but also in the strong nocturnal contrasts of Lina Moretti Nesticò and in the sweet “juicy” shapes and pasty of Stefano Manzotti’s still lifes that so much recall the hand of a young Cezanne. Man, imperceptible in the Morandian vision, returns almost objectified, as demonstrated by the works of Alberto Bertolotti, where the unpiduous exists only in the mass of the many and in their unique driving force. Ivana Scalco like Roberto Tomba geometrizes the face, while Enrica Toffoli and Ruth Vera Withall exaggerate it with an expressionist, unnatural materiality, beyond the human. The memory of the past, of “ancient” forms, typical of Morandi’s art, also strongly echoes in the works of the twelve. From Toffoli’s highly personal quotationism to Remondini’s chromatic experiments, these are all lessons in historical art, condemned never to regret the past. This is also the great relevance of Morandi himself and of him living the world through art.

Presentation by the Critic Denitza Nedkova

Artists on show: KARIM CARELLA – ALBERTO BERTOLOTTI – ROBERTO TOMBA – RUTH WHITALL – GIANPAOLO MERCHESI – MASSIMO RENZI – LINA MORETTI NESTICO ‘- PAOLO BERETTI – ENRICA TOFFOLI – PAOLO REMONDINI – FRANCESCO CARUSO – IVANA SCALCO – STEFANO MANZOTTI

Catalog: € 10.00 available in the gallery

Patronage of the Emilia Romagna Region