The August exhibitions to see in Italy
From the photography of Ugo Mulas to the paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi
G-Club
August 1st, 2024
August 1st, 2024
August has arrived. The temperatures are scorching, the sun is high in the sky, and for many of us, the desire for relaxation, the sea, and lazy days sipping fruit cocktails without worries crowding our minds increases. But what if, instead, we organized our holidays around the most interesting exhibitions across Italy? There's something for everyone. In Rome, you can discover the capital's 1980s dark scene. In Camogli, Liguria, the photography of Ugo Mulas meets the poetry of Eugenio Montale. Naples boasts the portraits of Artemisia Gentileschi, and Sicily hosts the paintings of Caravaggio. Here is a map for traveling through art, featuring the must-see exhibitions in Italy in August.
Dino Ignani - Rome
In the early 1980s, Dino Ignani began photographing the young people frequenting the venues and events related to the Roman alternative universe. His set? A tripod, a studio umbrella, a 1000-watt lamp, and the most neutral background possible. The result is about 200 photographs, posed black-and-white portraits, exploring the culture of that decade, offering an interesting look at the fashion, accessories, hairstyles, and makeup of the protagonists of the so-called dark scene, who expressed their identity and aesthetics through music, art, and the color black. Among the projects nominated for the PAC - PLAN FOR CONTEMPORARY ART 2022-2023 promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture, Ignani's project was recently acquired by the Capitoline Superintendency and can now be admired at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere until next October.
Title: Dark Portraits by Dino Ignani
When: until October 20, 2024
Where: Museum of Rome in Trastevere, Rome
Ugo Mulas, Eugenio Montale - Camogli
Visitors to the spaces of the Abbey of San Fruttuoso in Camogli will witness the artistic encounter between two masters of Italian culture, Ugo Mulas and Eugenio Montale, each communicating in their own language: photography, and poetry. It all began in 1962 when Ugo Mulas decided to illustrate for a magazine the book Ossi di Seppia and went to Monterosso, in the Cinque Terre, where Montale spent his childhood. The result is 25 black-and-white photographs that try to recreate the feelings of absolute and profound solitude expressed in Ossi di Seppia through shots of the sea, sun, and rocks.
Title: Ossi di Seppia. Ugo Mulas, Eugenio Montale
When: until February 16, 2025
Where: Abbey of San Fruttuoso, Camogli
Beloved by the Gods: Youth and Revolution in the Arts - Tivoli
Many artists, despite dying young, have left an important mark in the history of art, giving us fascinating works that we still remember and love today. Beloved by the Gods: Youth and Revolution in the Arts, the exhibition open until November 3, 2024, at Villa d'Este in Tivoli, is dedicated to all these talents who contributed to transforming the contemporary art scene, such as Umberto Boccioni, Antonio Sant'Elia, Scipione, Yves Klein with International Klein Blue 199, Piero Manzoni with the iconic Merda d'artista, Pino Pascali, Francesca Woodman, Andrea Pazienza with the work Zanardi Davide & Golia from 1983. In addition to visual arts, the exhibition also includes literary contributions from writers such as Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, and Anne Brontë, and clips from films and music pieces from great names of the past.
Title: Beloved by the Gods: Youth and Revolution in the Arts
When: until November 3, 2024
Where: Villa d'Este, Tivoli
Artemisia Gentileschi - Naples
The Magdalene, a masterpiece by Artemisia Gentileschi painted in Naples between 1630 – 1635, returns to Naples after 400 years. Also known as the Magdalene Sursock, from the name of the Lebanese collectors who owned the painting, the work was damaged during the Beirut bombing on August 4, 2020. Carefully restored, the portrait of the saint, with her ecstatic gaze and the deep golden yellow and ultramarine blue tones of her dress, will be visible in all its beauty until January 19, 2025, at the Monumental Complex of Santa Chiara.
Title: Magdalene, by Artemisia Gentileschi
When: until January 19, 2025
Where: Monumental Complex of Santa Chiara, Naples
Bar Stories on Camera - Turin
The "out of the ordinary" has always fascinated artists, and in 1983, Roland Fischer, Jürgen Klauke, Jean Le Gac, Herbert List, Leonard Freed, Orlan, and Julio Ernesto Solari explored its possible representations. Thus was born BAR - The Alternative Project: Bar Stories on Camera, an exhibition to be held at the GAM - Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Turin until September 22, 2024, exploring through more than 100 photographs the creativity and social function of these places.
Title: Bar - The Alternative Project: Bar Stories on Camera
When: until September 22, 2024
Where: GAM - Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Turin
Federica Galli - Mondovì
Perhaps not many people know her name, but Federica Galli is one of the most important figures in Italian engraving art. The Civic Museum of Printing in Mondovì dedicates a retrospective to her, giving the public the opportunity to admire her etchings and explore the main themes of the artist, with a particular focus on Piedmontese subjects, including city views, rural and urban environments, trees, snow, fog, night.
Title: Solchi
When: until September 15, 2024
Where: Civic Museum of Printing, Mondovì
Andy Trema - Reggio Calabria
Francesca Mele, known as Andy Trema, an eclectic artist from Salento based in Rome, arrives at Sottogiudecca, a multidisciplinary exhibition and performance space in Reggio Calabria, with Fiere, a cycle of works on paper inspired by the symbolism of tarot cards and ancient medieval bestiaries. Visitors to the exhibition will find themselves in a mystical and primordial universe, surreal and fascinating, inhabited by bestial bodies and women's heads intertwined in daring tantric poses, hybrid creatures, and women-chimeras, wise and elusive.
Title: Fiere
When: until August 31, 2024
Where: Sottogiudecca, Reggio Calabria
Araminta Blue - Gradara
The MARV - Museo d'Arte Rubini Vesin hosts the first museum exhibition of Araminta Blue. This is an opportunity to immerse oneself in the work of the acclaimed British artist, who, drawing on personal and collective memories, captures on canvas the fluidity and dynamism of human form and experience. The title, The Warmth on the Skin, suggests the focus of the exhibition: the contrasting sensations and emotions triggered by sunlight. These are fleeting moments that invite viewers to reflect on their own experiences and emotions. Among the works on display, Threading the Net stands out, a portrait depicting Dante's unfortunate lovers, Paolo and Francesca, condemned to eternal suffering in Hell.
Title: Araminta Blue. The Warmth on the Skin
When: until September 8, 2024
Where: MARV Museum, Gradara
Valerio Adami - Milan
Until September 22, Palazzo Reale in Milan presents an anthological exhibition that chronologically traces the production of Valerio Adami. Starting from his early works, including The Carousel from 1957, up to the 1980s, with a section dedicated to the portraits of the artist's "noble fathers," which stand out from the rest of his oeuvre for their almost expressionist style. Behind the simple images, close to the pop genre, lie deeper meanings, symbols, and figures that tell stories of philosophy, literature, and mythology, making one reflect on the world and its constant change over time.
Title: Valerio Adami. Painter of Ideas
When: until September 22, 2024
Where: Palazzo Reale, Milan
Caravaggio - Noto
The Convitto delle Arti Noto Museum transports visitors into the world of Caravaggio seen through his works and those of 20 Sicilian artists or artists active in Sicily in the first half of the 1600s. The exhibition is divided into three sections: the first is dedicated to artists who personally knew Caravaggio and were influenced by him, such as Mario Minniti and Battistello Caracciolo; the second section focuses on those who reinterpreted Caravaggism in a Baroque and classicist key, such as Pietro Novelli and Andrea Vaccaro, while the third is dedicated to Caravaggio himself.
Title: The Sicily of Caravaggio
When: until November 3, 2024
Where: Convitto delle Arti Noto Museum, Noto
