Madre Museum presents Vettor Pisani. Eroica / Antieroica. Una retrospettiva (Heroic/Antiheroic. A retrospective) an exhibition on view December 21, 2013–March 24, 2014.
Eroica/Antieroica. Una retrospettiva (Heroic/Antiheroic. A retrospective) is the first and most comprehensive retrospective ever devoted to Vettor Pisani (Bari, 1934–Rome, 2011). With his first solo exhibition in 1970 at the Galleria La Salita in Rome (Maschile, Femminile e Androgino – Incesto e Cannibalismo in Marcel Duchamp), and then with his participation in some of the most important exhibitions of the 1970s and 1980s, including Vitalità del negativo nell’arte italiana 1960–70 (1970), Documenta V (1972), Contemporanea (1973–1974), International Performance Week at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (1977) and his eight participations in the Venice Biennale from 1972 to 1995, Pisani gradually emerged as one of the most important exponents of artistic research in Italy, due to his distinctive narrative-based practice, as well as one of the most personal and visionary authors of his generation. His figure appears today as radically contemporary, that of a true precursor who successfully combined conceptual investigation with ironic understatement, the play of language with role playing, masking with the search for truth, History with the everyday, the sacred with the profane, the quotation from the past with its embodiment in the present. All Pisani’s works are theatrical representations of the human knowledge located systematically beyond the boundaries that separate disciplines such as art, literature, theater, music, architecture, philosophy, poetry, science (including the occult sciences), even moving beyond the very idea of the artist as a singular and uniform figure. The exhibition retrace the artist’s whole output grouping site-specific installations, mixed media works, drawings and collages, paintings on canvas and PVC, re-enactments of performative actions, accompanied by an essential complement of photographic and filmic documentary materials. A twin exhibition will be on view from January 27 to March 30 at the Teatro Margherita, Bari and the first survey monograph devoted to the artist will be published in 2014 by Electa, to accompany both exhibitions.
Curated by Andrea Viliani, Eugenio Viola. Curatorial Advisor: Laura Cherubini
Museo d’arte contemporanea Donnaregina – Madre, Napoli
Via Settembrini 79
80139 Naples
Italy