All the autumn exhibitions not to be missed!
Balthus
Fondation Beyeler, Basel
September 2 – January 1, 2019
The exhibition, in collaboration with the artist’s family and curated by Raphael Bouvier and Michiko Kono, presents fifty of the most significant works of the artist’s career and is the first major retrospective dedicated to Balthus in German-speaking Switzerland.
The artist’s bond with these places has always been strong, both for his marriage to the Swiss aristocrat Antonietta de Watteville and for the childhood spent between Bern and Geneva.
Balthus, pseudonym of Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, was born in Paris to an art critic father and painter mother, thanks to his parents he had the opportunity to travel and get closer to the world of art from an early age.
It will be the first trip to Italy in 1926 to bring him closer to the Tuscan Renaissance masters, in particular to Piero della Francesca, whom he considered to be his mentor.
Taking the compositional system from the great painters of the past, then expertly mixing it with the other Italian artistic currents, such as Magic Realism and Metaphysics: it is from this particular combination that the enigmatic static nature characteristic of his works is born, which can combine daily life and mystery, dream and reality.
Balthus has been able to revolutionize the figurative tradition in open opposition to the avant-garde currents of the time, in a historical period that featured painters such as Picasso and Matisse.
Little understood by his contemporaries, after the thirties his iconography was oriented towards the representation of nudes characterized by an almost sculptural immobility; among these his main subjects are young children in the toilet that also earned him pornography charges.
The delicacy of the nudes, caught in moments of daily intimacy and anything but mischievous, clearly expresses Balthus’s intent to tell the psychological aspect of the subjects and to cite the classical masters.
The bond with Italy is expected to strengthen from 1961, when the artist is appointed director of the Academy of France in Rome, an assignment that will last 17 years during which Balthus will create several works set in the eternal city.
The great retrospective that will end in Basel on January 1, 2019, will move to Madrid at the National Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.
Balthus, Thérèse, 1938
Oil on cardboard mounted on wood
100.3 x 81.3 cm
Renzo Piano
The Art of Making Buildings
Royal Academy of Arts, London
September 15 – January 20, 2019
United by a sense of lightness thanks to the use of large windows, a mixture of invention and tradition, function and context, Renzo Piano’s buildings are now part of the public imagination.
His projects have changed the skyline of metropolises all over the world through futuristic and immediately recognizable lines, the result of a work of constant research and experimentation with materials and architectural typologies.
The exhibition, designed and curated in close collaboration with the same Plan, traces the architect’s career from the Genoese heritage of the construction builder father to the studies carried out in Florence and Milan, passing through international experiences and worldwide acclaim alongside his friend and collaborator Richard Rogers.
Focused on 16 key projects, the exhibition explores the architect’s modus operandi, highlighting the wise use of shapes, materials and engineering to materialise elegant and pioneering ideas.
The Centre George Pompidou in Paris, a project of 1971 that brought him worldwide fame, the London Shard, and the New York Times headquarters in the Big Apple stand out among the most famous projects designed by Piano.
On display there will be not only photographs and projects but also many hand drawings in which you can follow the flow of ideas and inspirations that led to the creation of futuristic buildings that have become icons and symbols of absolute modernity.
In addition to the projects that made him crown “archistar”, the lesser known ones dating back to the 1970s, the beginning of the career of the well-known Genoese architect, will also be visible.
At the centre of the exhibition is the imaginary “Island“, a sculptural installation specially designed for the monograph of the Royal Academy that brings together almost 100 projects that recount Renzo Piano’s 30 years of career.
The Shard, also called London Bridge Tower
London, 2013-2016.
Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci
Abu Dhabi Louvre
September 18
Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi will be finally exhibited at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, after being purchased for the record of $ 450 million by the United Arab Emirates Department of Culture and Tourism in November 2017 during the Christie’s auction in New York.
Just one week after the museum’s inauguration, the purchase has been an excellent marketing operation and has further clarified the economic power of the Emirates
However, this is a temporary exhibition, because the work will return to the Louvre in Paris on the occasion of the exhibition that will take place from 24 October 2019 until 24 February 2020 to celebrate the anniversary of the death – 500 years in May 2019 – of the Tuscan master.
The oil on board representing Christ blessing has long been considered to come from Leonardo’s workshop, and over time the attributions by international experts, who have long debated on the authorship of the work, have been very controversial.
Painted between 1490 and around 1515, it was finally recognized as Leonardo’s work only in 2011 on the occasion of the exhibition at the National Gallery in London.
The Salvator Mundi promises to be the centrepiece of the Abu Dhabi collection and represents an excellent piece to counterbalance the Mona Lisa, exhibited in the Parisian museum of the same name.
The collaboration between the two Louvres foresees that the Abu Dhabi museum can use the name – which has become almost a brand – for about 30 years.
The terms of the agreements provide that France undertakes to guarantee a constant loan of works through the Agence France-Muséums, an institution that brings together the 13 major French museums involved in the partnership with Abu Dhabi. These thirteen museums will also ensure the rotation of four exhibitions per year for 15 years at the Arab facility.
France also has the obligation of bringing curators, experts and highly qualified figures who will train the staff to the Louvre in Abu Dhabi: in this way the museum will have time to build its own permanent collection and to manage itself within a few years.
Leonardo da Vinci, Salvator Mundi, around 1490-1515.
Oil on wallnut
66 x 46 cm
The World on Paper
New Cultural Headquarters of the Deutsche Bank, Berlin.
Opening September 27th.
On September 27, the new cultural headquarters of the Deutsche Bank will open in Berlin under the direction of Svenja von Reichenbach, formerly responsible for exhibitions at the Berlin office and director of the Deutsche Bank KunstHalle since 2013.
The Centre is spread over a total area of 3,000 square metres occupying the building renamed “Palais Populaire” and the spaces adjacent to it.
In the artistic field, the German bank is known for a collection focused on photography and works on paper among the most important in the world, but the cultural centre of Berlin will host events of all kinds including exhibitions, concerts and sports.
The exhibition that inaugurates the spaces, “The World on Paper” curated by Friedhelm Hütte, sees protagonists precisely with the works of the Deutsche Bank collection, but information about it is once again very scarce, probably to intrigue the public by focusing on the surprise effect.
Exterior view of the Palais Populaire, Berlin
Real Bodies: discover the human body
Spazio Ventura XV, Milan
October 6 – January 31, 2019
The exhibition on human anatomy returns to Milan two years after the first exhibition held at the Fabbrica del Vapore, where it had reached a record attendance with 280 thousand visitors, certainly thanks to the intriguing and attracting particularity of the “objects” on display.
The 500 artifacts preserved by plastination are organs of men and women who voluntarily decided to donate their post mortem body in the name of science.
This year, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, a section of the exhibition will be dedicated to the Tuscan master, undisputed pioneer of forensic medicine and a great scholar of human body.
The thirty installations of human artefacts will reproduce Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical sketches contained in the Windsor code in a direct comparison between his studies and reality.
Another novelty compared to the previous edition is the presence of animal organs, including the heart of a humpback whale, the largest heart muscle on Earth that measures 1-meter-wide and is capable of pumping 220 litres of blood.
The exhibition, through the study of the human body, aims to make known the progress of biomechanics and reconstructive surgery, to sensitize people on the fight against addictions and to facilitate disease prevention. The high scientific and educational value makes the exhibition an unmissable appointment for school children and curious people in general.
Leonardo da Vinci, Windsor codex, detail of a drawing
1478-1518
Carte Blanche to Tomás Saraceno
On Air
Palais de Tokyo, Paris
October 17 – January 6, 2019
Tomás Saraceno will be the protagonist of the fourth edition of the “Cartes Blanches” series, monumental exhibitions cyclically entrusted to different artists that started in 2013 with Philippe Parreno, then continued in 2016 with Tino Sehgal and with Camille Henrot in 2017.
“On Air” promises to be the largest project ever created by the artist, whose research develops and concretizes in the mixture of architecture, art science and philosophy.
The exhibition brings together a selection of his main works and new productions that will transform the 13,000 square metres of the Palais de Tokyo into a truly unique experience.
By combining the smaller and larger stairs, the exhibition will seek to reveal the connection between a spider web, a particle of dust, an architecture and the redistribution of the atmosphere through the Aerocene, an interdisciplinary artistic project that proposes a collective rethinking of the way men inhabit the world.
Aerocene imagines the creation of a new infrastructure that redefines the international right to mobility, reviewing the freedom of movement between countries and reminding us that air is a precious asset that belongs to all living beings.
The exhibition space of the Palais de Tokyo thus becomes a huge stage that shows the richness and complexity of everything that makes up the universe, transporting us to a place where the microscopic and the cosmic coexist, transcending human perception to explore the world from different points of view.
Flanked by a team of international professionals that sees the participation of architects, researchers and astrophysicists from all over the world, Tomás Saraceno invites us to rethink our way of experiencing the planet.
Tomás Saraceno, detail of a work, 2017
Picasso Metamorphosis
Palazzo Reale, Milan
October 18 – February 17, 2019
The European exhibition promoted by the Musée Picasso in Paris also stops in Milan and presents 200 works that include both works by Picasso and pieces of ancient art from important international museum institutions.
The focus of the exhibition is the relationship between the painter and the myth of antiquity, a source of inspiration highlighted by the many references that Picasso has included in his works during his artistic career: therefore, the mythological themes emerge thanks to a direct comparison between pieces of ancient art and master’s works.
The exhibition is part of a series of events dedicated by the Royal Palace to the Spanish painter, which began in 1953 with the exhibition of Guernica in the Sala delle Cariatidi and ended with the large monographic exhibition of 2012.
Pablo Picasso, Women at the spring, 1921
Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie
Oil on canvas
50 x 52 cm
Mario Merz
Igloos
Hangar Bicocca, Milan
October 24 – February 24
The exhibition curated by Vicente Todolí and created in collaboration with the Merz Foundation, offers the unique opportunity to be able to admire for the first time 30 igloos from private collections and museums, created by the artist between 1968 and 2003.
The exhibition opens with 1987’s “La Goccia d’Acqua”, which with its 12 meters in diameter is the largest igloo created by Merz for an internal exhibition space, on the occasion of the solo exhibition at the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Bordeaux .
In the space of the Navate, with an area of 5,500mq, the exhibition itinerary then proceeds in chronological order starting with the igloos created in the sixties.
Thanks to this substantial body of works, the exhibition takes us through the most innovative aspects and components of Merz, very tied to the particular use of both natural and industrial materials and attentive to the dialogue between natural space and architecture.
A key figure in Arte Povera, Mario Merz was among the first in Italy to use the artistic installation as an artistic means of expression, inserting neon and everyday objects on the canvas. In addition to these, he has often also used some elements belonging to the scientific field, such as the Fibonacci sequence.
It is from 1968 that he introduces a theme that will remain one of the most representative of his research: the igloo.
This particular type of home becomes a metaphor for the relationships between physical space and conceptual space, between individual and community, a place of refuge and ephemeral isolation from external reality.
Igloos are often created through metal structures covered with various elements, from clay to glass, from stone to jute.
Since the 1980s there has been an evolution in the structure of the igloos, which become more complex, characterized by intersecting lines and the addition of neon writing.
The symbolic value of these delicate installations sometimes assumes even political meanings, thus opening up to contemporary debates.
Mario Merz, The Drop of Water, 1987
Diameter: 12 meters
The shades of the rainbow of art are infinite: choose your favourite!
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