Tuesday, February 06, 2024

Venice - Museo Fortuny - Cultura di Polvere - Joan Fontcuberta


"I do not intervene on an image; I implement an 
objective discipline
one of a surrealist kind; based on a 
chance encounter with the object."
Joan Fontcuberta

Museo Fortuny 
Cultura di Polvere - Joan Fontcuberta

Culture of Dust - curated by Francesca Fabiani - inaugurates the exhibition season at the Museo Fortuny  hosting - until 10 March - twelve light boxes created by Joan Fontcuberta: the outcome of the Catalan artist's dialogue with the extraordinary historical collections of the ICCD in Rome, an institute founded at the end of the nineteenth century as a Photographic Cabinet to document cultural heritage for protection and cataloging purposes. The exhibition, at Palazzo Fortuny, recalls not only the common nationality between the artist and the "landlord" but, above all, the profound bond of this place with photography, from the experiments of Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo to its very rich archive kept here, then an avant-garde center of photo.


Joan Fontcuberta is an artist with multidisciplinary activities, his work, with its critical and experimental approach, addresses some crucial themes of this art such as the truthfulness of representation, the blurred boundary between reality and illusion, authoriality and authoritativeness in photography, the persuasive power of the image and its dissemination.


"May I see the most 
degraded photographic 
material you have in your collection?'
Joan Fontcuberta

The Culture of Dust exhibition was born as part of the ICCD Artists in Residence program curated by Francesca Fabiani, in which Joan Fontcuberta chose to work on some deteriorated photographic plates from the Fondo Chigi, the starting point for a series of visual and linguistic experiments from the photographs of the scion of one of the richest and most powerful noble families in history, Prince Francesco Chigi Albani della Rovere - 1881-1953 - naturalist and amateur photographer, who in the course of his experiments often arrived at surprising solutions and these have combined well with the provocative intelligence and ironic mind of Fontcuberta. This meeting of personalities has produced new works with a contemporary perspective from archive dust - evoked by the title which refers to the famous 1920 work by Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray - Élevage de poussière .



Through a surrealist type procedure which consists in the taking/appropriation of already given elements - in this case a fragment of the plate - Fontcuberta completed his creative act, returning images that are almost abstract and yet real; implausible, absolutely unmanipulated landscapes that appear in the light box display. 


The materials on which the artist worked, if on the one hand lose their memory, on the other acquire new physiognomy through the many signs that the passage of time has left on them: scratches, gaps and, sometimes, bacteria and fungi proliferated thanks to chemically friendly environment of the silver salt gelatin emulsion. New landscapes that add to the original subject of the photograph, visible against the light.

 
Joan Fontcuberta  - Trauma Series


"This work analyses the material agony of photography.
 Its material deteriorates
generates a paradoxically 'amnesiac' 
photograph, one bereft of its memory. 
The symbolic immortality of photography 
therefore turns out to be false."
Joan Fontcuberta 


Prince Francesco Chigi Albani della Rovere 
silver salt gelatin stereoscopies on glass -1900-1920


Seen at the Press Conference
Chiara Squacina, Giorgia Pea, Joan Fontcuberta, Fabrizia Fabiani  
Carlo Birrozzi


Anna Zemella and Mara Vittori


 Elisa Chesini, Cristina Da Roit and Elisabetta Barisoni


Liselotte Hohs and Chiara Squarcina


Lorenzo Cinotti


Joan Fontcuberta  - Trauma #1882 - 2022








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Friday, January 12, 2024

Venezia - Ca Pesaro - Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna - Venetian Portrait Painting of the Nineteenth Century


“The re-presentation in the same venue of so many masterpieces of the most representative Venetian artists of the nineteenth century, re-discovered when lost, re-studied when already known, allows us to visualize the features of the 
Venetian protagonists of an entire century, chosen in 1923 by Nino Barbantini 
and, a century later, still capable of fascinating  surprising the public of 
Ca’ Pesaro.”
Elisabetta Barisoni and Roberto de Fero
Curators

Venezia - Ca' Pesaro - Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna 
Venetian Portrait Painting of the Nineteenth Century

You could time travel back to 1923 and see the same exhibition, in the same venue - Venetian Portrait Painting of the Nineteenth Century - until April 1 - curated by Elisabetta Barisoni and Roberto De Feo - that now - one hundred years later - is re-presented at Ca' Pesaro, that the then first director - Nino Barbantini - of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna organised and staged. Even today, the 1920s show it is still considered a crucially important exhibition, which rediscovered an entire century of Venetian art, introduced many of its key artists and fostered appreciation for many of the masterpieces on display, and heralded a new direction for the Venetian gallery and Barbantini’s work, which turned to planning major exhibitions on specific periods or individual Italian artists. 

Lattanzio Querena - 1768-1853


The catalogue compiled by Barbantini included 241 works by fifty artists, among them painters, sculptors and miniaturists, all of whom were active from the  beginning to the penultimate decade of the nineteenth century, opening with Teodoro Matteini and closing with Giacomo Favretto. The list, organised in alphabetical order, not only presents brief biographies of the artists but also names the works’ respective owners at the time. This information was the initial source for the painstaking task for the curators in researching and identifying the works one hundred years on for their exhibition at Ca’ Pesaro. Partly due to the success of the 1923 show, many works entered public collections, while others have remained with heirs or, to a lesser extent, have been permanently lost. 
Teodoro Matteini  
Il Conte Lodovico Widemann -1799


The exhibition at Ca’ Pesaro is a unique occasion for reconstructing the 1923 review, and revisiting numerous prominent personalities from the world of art, culture and society in a wide geographical area that extends from the capital of Veneto to Friuli Venezia Giulia. Not only Venice, but also Treviso, Bassano, Padua, Trieste, Belluno, Udine, Pordenone, Caneva di Sacile were among the places where the brilliant director of Ca' Pesaro Nino Barbantini was the first to discover works that represented the artistic greatness of a century, which had been neglected in order to mythologise the previous one.
Odorico Politi 
Self-portrait -1830 - Antonio Canova - 1823
The Painter Giuseppe Borsato - 1830 - Anna Borsato Orsi - 1830
Giovanni Carlo Bevilacqua 
Anna Borsato Orsi - 1811


Odorico Politi 
Nude of a woman: study for the figure of Campaspe - 1812-1816
The painter's model - 1837-1838


"... conceived as a philological review of an exhibition that made history and at the same time a tribute to its brilliant curator, whose historical-artistic lesson remains in the collections and whose voice resonates in the rooms of Ca' Pesaro. The re-presentation in the same venue of so many masterpieces of the most representative Venetian artists of the nineteenth century, rediscovered when lost, re-studied when already known, will also allow us to visualize the features of the Venetian protagonists of an entire century, chosen in 1923 by Barbantini by instinct and thanks to his pioneering knowledge of the time and, a century later, still capable of fascinating and surprising the public of Ca' Pesaro".
Elisabetta Barisoni and Roberto De Feo
curators


Lodovico Lipparini
La Contessa Elena Vendramin Calergi Valmarana - 1838c.
Il Conte Andrea Valmarana - 1838c.


Giuseppe Tominz
 The Brucker Family - 1820-1830


Visitors had the opportunity in 1923 to to examine famous artists such as Hayez, Molmenti, Grigoletti, Schiavoni, Lipparini; artists discovered and rediscovered, who had lived and trained in Venice, leaving precious testimonies of the society, the spirit of the age, its protagonists and its great upheavals: a heritage of images of families, intellectuals, artists, patriots, women, some of whom themselves artists.  All this comes to life again today thanks to meticulous and lengthy research work conducted by the curators to reconstruct the layout and catalogue of the historic exhibition: this enormous critical effort over two years has led to the tracing of no less than 166 works by 52 artists from the original exhibition, now preserved in museums and collections throughout Italy.
Giuseppe Tominz
Ciriaco Catraro - 1836


Francesco Hayez 
Donna Mariquita d'Adda Falco' - 1855
La nobildonna Matilde Speck Pirovano Visconti - 1837-1840c.


Tito Catone Perlotto 
Lucietta Memmo Mocenigo - album Perlotto Ritratti - 1838c.


Giuseppe Tominz
La Famiglia Sinigaglia
- 1844


Joseph-Desire' Court
Albert Guillon - 1836
Albertine Guillon - 1845


Michelangelo Grigoletti
Maria and Lorenzo Schiavi - The Two Grandchildren - 1832


Felice Schiavoni
Angela Fassetta - 1850c.
La Granduchessa Elena Paulowna - 1841
Late Neoclassical Sculpture
Maria Malibran - 1836c.


Luigi Borro
Natale Schiavoni - 1856
Giulia Schiavoni Sernagiotto  
The Painter natale Schiavoni - 1853


Giovanni Busato
Elisabetta Zigiotti Manin and Her Son Angelo - 1857-1859


Anonymous Author
Young Man - 1850c.



Luigi Ferrari
Il Conte Giovanni Papadopoli - 1860c.
Pompeo Marino Molmenti
Il Conte Giovanni Papadopoli - 1862


Giulio Carlini
Alfonsa and Adele Carlini with Palette - 1860c.


The Press Preview
Roberto De Feo, Chiara Squarcina, Stefano Zecchi and Elisabetta Barisoni























 
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Monday, December 18, 2023

Venice - Peggy Guggenheim Collection - Marcel Duchamp and the Lure of the Copy


"A duplicate or a mechanical
repetition has the same value as the original." 
Marcel Duchamp

Peggy Guggenheim Collection  
Marcel Duchamp and the Lure of the Copy

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents - Marcel Duchamp and the Lure of the Copy, - until March 18 - curated by Paul B. Franklin, a Paris-based art historian and an internationally acclaimed expert on the life and work of Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968). This is the very first exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection devoted exclusively to Duchamp, among the most influential and innovative artists of the twentieth century and a longtime friend and adviser to the American patron Peggy Guggenheim.
Marcel Duchamp - de ou par - Marcel Duchamp ou Rrose Selavy 
Boite-en-valiseBox in a Valise - 1935-41


Photograph courtesy Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Peggy Guggenheim Collection - Venice - Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation - New York

The show features some sixty artworks dating from 1911 to 1968. These include iconic objects from the permanent collection of the Peggy Guggenheim Collectionsuch as Nude (Sketch), Sad Young Man in a Train (1911) and the Box in a Valise (1935–41), as well as from other Italian and American institutions. The exhibition also presents several lesser-known artworks in private hands, including the artist’s estate. Furthermore, fully half of the pieces on display come from the distinguished Venetian collection of the late Attilio Codognato, who first took an interest in Duchamp’s work in the early 1970s.
Marcel Duchamp - Dedication to Peggy Guggenheim 
in her copy of the from or by
Marcel Duchamp or Rrose Selavy - Box in a valise - 1935-41  
cat.6 - deluxe edition - no. i?XX - January 1941


“I needed much help and advice, which I got from an old friend, Marcel Duchamp . . . I don’t know what I would have done without him . . . I have to thank him for my introduction to the modern art world.”
Peggy Guggenheim
 Confessions of an Art Addict - 1960

Peggy Guggenheim met Marcel Duchamp in Paris around 1923. Beginning in the fall of 1937, the artist was one of her most trusted mentors and advisors, as she set out to launch the art gallery Guggenheim Jeune, which opened in London on January 24, 1938, and soon after to build her own collection of modern art. In her memoirs - Confessions of an Art Addict - 1960 - Guggenheim recalled: “I needed much help and advice, which I got from an old friend, Marcel Duchamp . . . I don’t know what I would have done without him . . . I have to thank him for my introduction to the modern art world.” Guggenheim was also one of Duchamp’s early patrons, acquiring the first copy of the deluxe edition of Box in a Valise in 1941 - above. 
Marcel Duchamp



Marcel Duchamp - A Propos de jeune soeur
Apropos of Little Sister - front and back - October 1911


Duchamp, despite having executed some of the most recognizable canvases of the twentieth century, such as  Le Roi et la reine entourés de nus vites - The King and Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes - 1912 - above - abandoned easel painting in 1918 at the age of thirty-one. For the next fifty years, he engaged in multiple creative acts, virtually none of which was considered high art at the time. In addition to those endeavors, he repeatedly reproduced his own work in different media and on various scales. These meticulously executed copies enabled him to disseminate his otherwise modest output without generating anything indisputably new. As a result, he also deftly circumvented the voracious art market.
Marcel Duhamp - Le roi et la reine entoure de nus vites
The King and Queen Sourrounded by Swift Nudes - May 1912




La Mariee mise a nu par ses celibataires meme
The Bride Bare by Her Bachelors, Even 
 Green Box - commonly known - 1934


Man Ray - born Emmanuel Radnitzky - Marcel Duchamp in his studio holding
Glissiere contentant un moulin a eau - en metaux voisons
Glicer Containing a Water Mill - in Neighboring Metals 1913-1915 - December 1923


Marcel Duchamp
Cover design for Transition: a Quarterly Review - no. 26 - Winter 1937 Periodical
Peigne - Comb - 1964 replica of 1916 original


On a cotton dish towel screen-printed with a kitschy reproduction of the Mona Lisa, Duchamp, added a mustache and a goatee.  In the lower  right half, he collaged a miniature paper painter's palette and brush, on which he inscribed l'envers de la pienture, the wrong side of the painting. When furthermore turned over the cotton towel - a surrogate canvas - viewed on the wrong side - the Mona Lisa would appear backwards or a' l'envers. These two Mona Lisa, one besmirched by Duchamp and the other the wrong way around - both signify - l'envers de la pienture - because neither is a faithful copy of the original.
Marcel Duchamp - L'envers de la pienture - ca. 1955
screen-printed dish towel with ink and paper additions


Marcel Duchamp - Trebuchet 
 Trap - replica of lost 1917 original - 1964


Paul B. Franklin
curator


Marcel Duchamp - Variations on Optical Disks - 1938


Marcel Duchamp Couverture-Cigarettes 
Front and back cover design for the deluxe edition of
La Septieme face du de: poemes-decoupages - printed May 25 - 1936



“As for distinguishing the real from the fake, 
the imitation from the copy, 
those are totally idiotic technical questions.”
 Marcel Duchamp
 1967 

In reproducing his work in different media, on various scales, and in limited editions, Duchamp illustrated that certain duplicates and the originals from which they were replicated offered comparable forms of aesthetic pleasure. In so doing, Duchamp also redefined what constitutes a work of art and, by extension, the identity of the artist. Throughout his oeuvre, he continually called into question the traditional hierarchy between original and copy.  For Duchamp, the ideas embodied in a work of art were of equal significance as the physical object itself. The importance that he accorded to aesthetic concepts inspired him to reproduce his own work repeatedly and with meticulous exactitude, beginning with the - Boîte de 1914 - Box of 1914 - 1913–14/15 - a series of photographic facsimiles of handwritten notes, and continuing into the 1960s, with replicas of his historic readymades. 
Marcel Duchamp - de ou par - Marcel Duchamp ou Rrose Selavy 
Boite-en-valise - Box in a Valise - 
conceived - 1935-41 - series F - assembled 1966


Marcel Duchamp and the Lure of the Copy offers a rare opportunity to examine a significant selection of the artist’s works in relation to one another, an exercise, as Duchamp frequently argued, essential to comprehending his aesthetic project. In so doing, not only can one discern the intricate visual, thematic, and conceptual connections that unify them as an oeuvre, but also one can grasp the extent to which these whimsical, often-hybrid “items” troubled and sometimes totally escaped standard artistic classifications in use at the time of their conception. 
Marcel Duchamp - Apolinere Enameled
printer's proof - replica of 1916-17 original - 1965


Paul B. Franklin and Karole Vail













 













 

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