GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Bergamo presents THE WONDERFUL LAND OF ART. The Ethics and Aesthetics of the Nation
28 September 2011–19 February 2012
Italy’s image around the world in the variety of its visual expressions—from cinema to art, literature, design, and both the élite and pop culture—will be viewed through 200 works by great Italian and international artists from the 19th century to nowadays.
Curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio and Maria Cristina Rodeschini, the exhibition has been staged to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy, and will demonstrate the decisive influence of artistic creation on the practical organization of the country’s social life, above all in the past century and a half of history. The Wonderful Land of Art will thus offer significant historical examples, such as the portraits of 200 Garibaldians who took part in the Expedition of the Thousand, or a series of caricatures of members of the Italian Parliament, sketched by Senator Tecchio on parliamentary letterhead in the late 19th century.
In these works, memory captured by art is reflected as the convergence of past and present in ethics and aesthetics, in related fields such as architecture and design as well as very different ones such as the local landscape, religion and politics.
Each room will also showcase objects—votive offerings, sports trophies or books become icons of the Italian identity. Indeed, their presence will establish a comparison between the pure ideal of avant-garde art and the testimony of spontaneous, popular or industrial creativity.
Through 8 sections, at GAMeC visitors will have the chance to explore the places and moments that were part of the origin and construction of the nation-state as a united entity—the flag, the language, the national anthem, borders, the map, the religious culture, monuments and sports—also through works that mimic or define forms of political, aesthetic, geographical or identity-related representation. Through them, the exhibition moves beyond the limitation of the artistic object to engage directly with reality and its structures, with examples such as Giacinto Facchetti’s football jersey, biking champion Felice Gimondi’s pink jersey, the European Ski Cup and the uniform of Fausto Radici’s Valanga Azzurra, the alpine ski team.
All of this will be supplemented by a video-documentary, expressly realized for the occasion, which will illustrate the cultural, social and artistic panorama evoked by the exhibition, using film clips, television shows, theatre, ads and news bulletins.
GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Bergamo
Via San Tomaso, 53
24121 Bergamo – Italy
T +39 035 270272
F +39 035 236962
www.gamec.it
Image: Tim Rollins & K.O.S., “I See the Promised Land – Emmanuel Carvajal (after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.),” 2000. Matte acrylic, pencil, animal blood on book pages on canvas, 157,5×115 cm. Courtesy Collezione Morra Greco, Napoli.