Palazzo Strozzi presents The Thirties. The Arts in Italy Beyond Fascism, an exhibition on view 22 September 2012-27 January 2013.
Antonio Donghi (1897-1963), Woman at the Café, 1932; oil on canvas; 80 x 60 cm, Venice, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna di Ca’ Pesaro, inv. 899.
The Thirties. The Arts in Italy Beyond Fascism comprises 96 paintings, 17 sculptures and 20 objects of design and tells the story of a crucial era characterised by an extremely vigorous arts scene in the years of the Fascist regime, against a backdrop that included the embryonic development of mass communication in Italy – radio, cinema and illustrated magazines – which stole numerous ideas from the “fine” arts and transmitted them to a broader audience.
This retrospective illustrates an era that profoundly changed the history of Italy. The 1930s also witnessed the increasing mass production of household objects, which led to dramatic changes in people’s lifestyle, allowing ordinary families to live out a dream of modernity surrounded by designer objects, a practice that continues to this day.
Curated by Antonello Negri with Silvia Bignami, Paolo Rusconi and Giorgio Zanchetti, with Susanna Ragionieri curating the section on Florence, the exhibition takes its cue from the critical perspective of people writing in the 1930s to explore the idea of Italian art as a product of the specific identity of certain “schools” (Milan, Florence, Rome, Turin, Trieste) which not only interacted with one another but also with such international centres as Paris and Berlin. The installation will highlight the innovation of the younger generation, giving pride of place both to works of art that had a high profile in the exhibitions of the day and an impact on the overall cultural debate, and to a number of pieces that have rarely, if ever, been shown.
The exhibition presents the 1930s as a complex and lively workshop in which an artistic battle, fought against the backdrop of Fascism, involved every style and trend from classicism to Futurism, from Expressionism to Abstract Art and from monumental art to decorative painting for the bourgeois home. Examining moments of conflict and innovation, it will shed light on the differences between artists with a solid reputation and those of the younger generation, new innovative players who were already imparting a fresh boost to the prestige of Italian art. Ranging from the influence of travel on artists to “degenerate art” (as the avant-garde was branded in Germany and in Italy after the racial laws of 1938) and the artistic phenomenon of muralism, the 1930s are also explored in terms of the masses and their historical role, with the triumph of mass communication which was revolutionary at the time.
One of the most significant innovations in an Italy that was rapidly modernising was the start of mass production. From tubular seats to Luminator lamps, the objects produced in those years marked the birth of design in Italy, which was to be celebrated in the Milan Triennali of 1933 and 1936. Visitors to the exhibition, which is presented in seven sections, can admire not only the masterpieces of such artists as Sironi, Martini, Guttuso and Fontana but also rare photographs and footage of the era, with significant examples illustrating the impact of the design of homes and interiors on daily life and lifestyle.
The exhibits are loaned from major private collections, museums and foundations both in Italy and abroad, including the Kunstmuseum in Bern; the Musée des Années 30 in Boulogne-Billancourt; the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich; the Staatliche Museen in Berlin; the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome; the Museo del Novecento in Milan; the MART in Trento and Rovereto; the Museo Revoltella in Trieste; the Museo d’arte moderna in Cortina d’Ampezzo; and the Gallerie d’arte moderna in Florence, Genoa, Palermo, Piacenza, Turin, Udine, and Venice (Ca’ Pesaro).
The Thirties. The Arts in Italy Beyond Fascism is on view concurrently with the Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina’s exhibition Francis Bacon and the Existential Condition in Contemporary Art (5 October 2012 to 27 January 2013), in which a selection of paintings by the great master dialogues with the work of five international contemporary artists – Nathalie Djurberg, Adrian Ghenie, Arcangelo Sassolino, Chiharu Shiota and Annegret Soltau – who share Bacon’s interest in exploring the existential condition of man and the depiction of the human figure. – www.palazzostrozzi.org