8 June 2002, third part of the exhibit: Themes and Variations, Post-War Art from the Guggenheim Collections
On June 7th, the third part of the exhibition “Themes and Variations: Post-War Art from the Guggenheim Collection” will be inaugurated. Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, the six-month long show has come to its third and final phase. The specific character of this project revolves around its mobility and “variability,” as every two months the rooms are re-designed, showing different works generating provocative and innovative dialogues as well as the confrontations among them.
For the third time, an original journey through the Peggy Guggenheim Collection’s post-war art will be presented. Rarely exhibited works, spanning the late 1950s until the 1970s, along with recently donated Italian works of art, will be shown. These new aqusitions enrich the collection’s holdings in this particular phase of Art History. Particularly important to the third phase of the exhibition, is the presence of emblematic Italian works of art from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, exhibited with those of the Venetian Collection, some of which have not been shown in years.
The show begins with two suggestive rooms dedicated to Alberto Burri’s “plastic” works. Alberto Burri is one of the main artists of the international Informal art movement. The next room proposes a new confrontation among some masters of gestural and informal art, with the American Abstract Expressionist, Conrad Marca-Relli’s Figure Form (1958) and Emilio Vedova’s Immagine delTempo (1951). The latter constitutes the trace of a long friendship between Peggy Guggenheim and the venetian master, from whom she bought the work. Two interesting paintings from Afro, including Le Regole (1969), have recently been donated by Mario Graziani. Both create a dialogue with a crucial painting by the french-canadian painter Riopelle.
Following the gesture-matter sequence, one can see the room dedicated to the “mark” or “trace”, where abstraction is read as spatial writing. Two important works dominate the room: Ivan Novelli’s four large vertical paintings, donated by Gastone Noveli in 1992, and the recent donation from the artist Carla Accardi, now represented in the Collection by Concenico Blu (1960), a key work of her abstract research. Accardi is also represented in the exhibit by Senza Titolo, donated in 2001 by Isabella del Frate Rayburn.
The exhibition continues with a room dedicated to Lucio Fontana and the “monochrome”, representing the main artistic concerns and solutions of the 1960s. Three paintings from the spatialist maestro are shown this time, among them, Conceo Spaiale, Attese (1959). This important Milanese group, which showed concern on the monochrome and the Azimuh, includes works by Piero Manzoni (Achome, 1958-59) and Agostino Bonalumi (Nero, 1966). The Maestro Bonalumi was recently awarded the Premio Presidente della Repubblica Italiana 2001, and in July, the Guggenheim Collection will be dedicating a room to one of his ambientations which will be created specifically in the museum.
The outstandingly visually rich part of the exhibition, conformed by works recently rediscovered, is the one dedicated to Op and Cinetic Art. Works by Vasarely and Albers as well as “objects” by Boto, Massironi, Sobrino, Costalonga, Costa and Apollonio are exhibited and constitute the “unknown” pieces of Peggy Guggenheim’s collection. The journey ends with a room dedicated to the “second lifes of materials,” where the re-utilization of unconventional and everyday materials transformed into art is evident. There we can see Alberto Burri’s Ferro, where rusty aluminium plates give life to a wonderful “painting”. Two décollages by Mimmo Rotella, masterly composed with posters are found confronting the English artist Irwin’s Serendipity 2 (1957), composed by posters and collages of paper materials. This room finds completion with two Nouveaux Réalistes: Arman with Variabile e Invariable, of 1963 and César, with a Compressione from 1969, both objects previously presented in the 1960s in Peggy’s Venetian palace.
In collaboration with the Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini “Collezione Burri” (Castello), with the support of Maurice Kanbar, thanks to Isabella del Frate Rayburn.
Banca del Gottardo is Institutional Patron of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection
The programs of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection are made possible by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection Advisory Board, Alitalia, Regione Veneto and Intrapresæ Collezione Guggenheim.