From Francesco Vezzoli to Alighieri Boetti, Italian contemporary art was a complete success at the Art Basel Miami Beach (Dec 6-8). By the second day of the fair, the Masssimo di Carlo
Boetti
Gallery from Milan had sold all of its Boettis. Most of Francesco Vezzoli’s works were also sold on the first day. We noticed however, that a work by Luciano Fontana from 1965, Concetto Spaziale, remained unsold at the Tornabuoni Art Gallery, probably due to its $3,000,000 price-tag.
Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, Italy’s Foreign Minister and the former Italian Ambassador to Washington, will inaugurate the “2013 – The Year of Italian Culture” at a ceremony unveiling Michelangelo’s David- Apollo at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, on December 12, 2013. The yearlong celebration will showcase the best of Italian arts and culture across America in some 40 cities, beginning in Washington.
Michelangelo, David-Apollo
This will be the only presentation in the United States of the David-Apollo by Michelangelo, on loan from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. In 1949, the David-Apollo was lent by the Italian government as a token of gratitude for postwar aid, and to reaffirm the friendship and cultural ties between Italy and the United States. It was installed in time for President Harry Truman’s inaugural reception, held at the Gallery on January 20. During the next six months the installation was seen by more than 791,000 visitors. In 2013, a new generation of visitors to the National Mall for another inauguration―President Barack Obama’s second―will also have the chance to see this masterpiece.
The presentation of Michelangelo’s David-Apollo has been organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Embassy of Italy in Washington, the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Firenze, and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence., and the support of the Corporate Ambassadors Intesa Sanpaolo and Eni.
The statue will be on public view in the West Building from December 13, 2012, through March 3, 2013.
Alighiero Boetti
From December 6 through 9, Miami Beach, Florida, will host the 11th edition of Art Basel, the most prestigious art show in the Americas. More than 260 leading galleries from North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa will take part, showcasing works by more than 2,000 artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Read more. . .
Looking forward to seeing works by Michelangelo Pistoletto, Francesco Vezzoli, Lara Favarotto, and Alighiero Boetti among others.
Bodies and Shadows: Caravaggio and His Legacy, an exhibition at the The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is devoted to the legacy of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 – 1610), one of the most influential painters in European history. Shown here, Orazio Gentileschi’s Danae (circa 1622-23).
Bodies and Shadows: Caravaggio and His Legacy, on exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) until February 10, 2013, introduces the work of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), one of the most popular artists of the past, rivaling in fame both Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The stories of Caravaggio’s life are legend, more myth than history, describing traits of personality, including passion and brutality, that came to describe the unique qualities of his work. The exhibition, made up of 56 works in all, including a record eight works by Caravaggio himself, covers the evolution of his style. Caravaggio’s legacy is expressed in work by about twenty artists from Italy, Spain, France and the Netherlands who carried into the late 17th century the strangeness, beauty and raw emotion of his work. Read more . . .
Caravaggio, Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness
This famous canvas, The Feast of the Gods, formed the key element in one of the finest domestic decorative schemes of the Italian Renaissance—the private study of Alfonso d’Este, duke of Ferrara. The duke commissioned the two leading painters from Venice—first Giovanni Bellini and, later, his former pupil Titian—to depict bacchanals or revelries with mythological themes for the study. Begun by 1511, the room in the castle at Ferrara came to be called the Alabaster Chamber after its alabaster sculpture.
The Mythological Subject
The ribald theme comes from The Feasts (Fasti), a long classical poem by Ovid that recounts the origins of many ancient Roman rites and festivals. Ovid (43 B.C.–A.D. 17), describing a banquet given by the god of wine, mentioned an incident that embarrassed Priapus, god of virility.
The beautiful nymph Lotis, shown reclining at the far right, was lulled to sleep by wine. Priapus, overcome by lust, seized the opportunity to take advantage of her and is portrayed bending forward to lift her skirt. His attempt was foiled when an ass, seen at the left, “with raucous braying, gave out an ill-timed roar. Awakened, the startled nymph pushed Priapus away, and the god was laughed at by all.” Priapus, his pride wounded, took revenge by demanding the annual sacrifice of a donkey.
The ass stands next to Silenus, a woodland deity who used the beast to carry firewood. Silenus wears a keg on his belt because he was a follower of Bacchus, god of wine. Bacchus himself, seen as an infant, kneels before them while decanting wine into a crystal pitcher.
The Feast of Gods
On the occasion of the Columbus Day celebrations, Sebastiano Fulci, the Permanent Observer of Italy to the Organization of American States (OAS), joined by Andrea Claudio Galluzzo, President of the Association Fiorentini nel Mondo, Joseph Sciame Chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, John Viola Chief Operating Officer of The National Italian American Foundation, Justice Dominic Massaro of the Supreme Court of New York, donated on behalf of Italy, a bust of the Florentine navigator and cartographer, Amerigo Vespucci, a work by the American artist Greg Wyatt.
Unveiling of Amerigo Vespucci at OAS
During the ceremony, held in Washington, D.C. on October 11, 2012, Fulci, said that the donation was an “homage to the five hundredth anniversary of the death of the Italian navigator” who gave his name to the continent, and is part of the celebration of “the discovery of America,” which the OAS commemorated on October 12.
Present at the ceremony, held in the Hall of the Americas at OAS headquarters, were also the Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, the Assistant Secretary General, Ambassador Albert Ramdin, and the Chair of the Permanent Council and Permanent Representative of Mexico, Ambassador Joel Antonio Hernández García, among others.
Amerigo Vespucci was born and raised in Florence, acquired the favor and protection of Lorenzo de Medici. In 1499 he joined Alonso de Ojeda, who had received from Spain the task of exploring, the south coast of the “region” discovered by Columbus.
Navigator of the seas and profound scholar, during his travels he explored much of the eastern coast of South America. He was among the first supporters of the idea that Christopher Columbus had discovered a new continent and not a western route to reach the Far East by sea.
In his letters and diaries Amerigo Vespucci described the mainland as a “New World” and was the first to realize the presence of a new continent. In fact in his letters, addressed to Lorenzo de ‘Medici, Vespucci describes in detail the new territories, the peoples and animals understanding that this land couldn’t be the Asian continent.
It was the rapid spread of the letters circulated under his name that suggested the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller to use the female gender (America) of his Latinized name (Americus Vespucius), to indicate the new continent in his world map drawn in 1507.
Sicilian-born filmmaker’s movies focused on patriotism and hope
A stamp to honor film director Frank Capra, best known for the perennial favorite It’s a Wonderful Life starring James Stewart, has been issued by the Postal Service. Capra is one of four famous filmmakers to be awarded their own stamps. The others are John Ford, John Huston and Billy Wilder. The stamps will feature images from their most famous movies.
“With these stamps, we’re bringing these filmmakers out from behind their cameras and putting them in the spotlight so that we can learn more about them,” said Samuel Pulcrano, U.S. Postal Service vice president of corporate communications.
Frank Capra
Capra’s movies, which along with It’s a Wonderful Life
One common theme running through his films is the presence of patriotism and hope, which Capra sees as an antidote to a hard life. “I see a small farm boy becoming a great soldier; I see thousands of marching men…And I can see the beginnings of a new nation like Abraham Lincoln said. And I can see that Ohio boy being inaugurated as president. Things like that can only happen in a country like America,” says the hero of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936).
Born Francesco Rosario Capra in 1897 in Bisacquino, near Palermo, Sicily, he was six years old when he emigrated with his family to the United States. He once recounted the ship’s arrival into New York, where he saw “a statue of a great lady, taller than a church steeple, holding a torch above the land we were about to enter.”
His father said to him, according to a 1992 biography of Capra, “Ciccio, look! Look at that. That’s the greatest light since the star of Bethlehem! That’s the light of freedom. Remember that. Freedom.”
Capra’s family moved to an Italian section of Los Angeles, where the young Capra sold newspapers to help support his family. He worked odd jobs and played the banjo to pay his way through college, eventually earning a chemical engineering degree from California Institute of Technology.
He enlisted in the Army during World War I and after the war went into the entertainment business, starting out in comedy and eventually turning to film-making in the early 1930s.
At the height of his career, Capra again enlisted in the Army during World War II and directed war films for the government. He earned an Academy Award for one and a Distinguished Service Medal.
Capra’s films earned many Academy Awards but It Happened One Night, a comedy starring Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable that captured the country’s need to escape the realities of the Depression, became the first movie to win all five top Oscars including Best Picture.
Capra was also active in the film industry, working with the Screenwriters Guild and serving as president of the Academy of Motion Pictures.
Capra died of a heart attack in California in 1991 at age 94. His son Frank Capra was also in the film business until his death in 2007. A grandson Frank Capra III is a Hollywood director whose work includes the 1995 film The American President.
Capra’s films are considered timeless fables that glorify the average individual, decry materialism and offer optimism for the future.
Reprinted from Voce Italiana, Aug-Sept, 2012
September 29 is the centenary of the birth of one of cinema’s legendary directors, Michelangelo Antonioni. Best known for his trilogy on modern life and its discontents – made up of the films L’Avventura, La Notte and Eclipse – Antonioni is credited with redefining narrative film. An iconoclast, he challenged traditional perspectives on film, storytelling, drama, and the modern world.
Antonioni rejected action films in favor of movies that explored introspective characters and created intricate mood pieces. His focus was not on adventure or plot but on images and a movie’s design.
He received numerous awards and nominations for his enigmatic films, including several prizes at Cannes Film Festivals, and the Venice Film Festivals, and an honorary academy award in 1995.
L’Avventura (1960)
Born in Ferrara in Emilia Romagna, Antonioni was the son of prosperous landlords, Elisabetta and Ismaele. His childhood was a happy one, as he once said in an interview, spent drawing, practicing the violin and playing outdoors, mostly with the children of working class families.
“I always had sympathy for young women of working-class families, even later when I attended university: they were more authentic and spontaneous,” he said in the interview.
After graduating with an economics degree from the University of Bologna, Antonioni became a film journalist with the local newspaper. He later moved to Rome and took a short-lived job with Cinema, the official Fascist film magazine before enrolling at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia to study film technique. Shortly afterwards he was drafted into the Italian army.
Early in his film career, Antonioni produced a series of neorealist short films, some of them semi-documentaries of the lives of common people.
His first full-length movie was Cronaca di un amore (1950), which focused on the middle classes. In Le Amiche (1955), Antonioni introduced an experimental style that used exaggeratedly long takes and disconnected events.
He also used those techniques in L’avventura (1960), which became his first international success, followed by La notte (1961), starring Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni, and L’eclisse (1962), starring Alain Delon. Many of the films of this period also star Monica Vitti, Antonioni’s love interest at the time.
Perhaps his most famous film is Blowup (1966), set in London and starring Vanessa Redgrave, which won him Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay.
Zabriskie Point (1970), his first film set in America had a countercultural theme and a soundtrack by popular artists such as Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones, but was not a critical or commercial success. The Passenger (1975), starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider, received critical praise but also failed at the box office.
Antonioni continued to make films throughout the 80s and 90s and to collect awards, including an honorary academy award in 1994 as “one of the cinema’s master visual stylists.”
Antonioni has had his share of detractors, among them director Ingmar Bergman, who said he considered some of Antonioni’s films as masterpieces for their detached and dreamlike quality, but thought the others were monotonous and questioned why he was held in high esteem.
Antonioni died at age 94 on July 30, 2007 in Rome – the same day that Ingmar Bergman died. He lay in state at Rome’s City Hall; a large screen projected a collage of his life. He is buried in Ferrara.
–Reprinted from Voce Italiana