VENICE: The Autumn at Palazzo Fortuny exhibitions. The themes of the exhibitions at the Palazzo Fortuny museum, until January 9th 2011, are silence, nature, meditation and time. As always, Mariano Fortuny’s genius loci and spirit embrace the works of contemporary artists displaying their works in the museum, paying him homage and continuing his aptitude for experimentation.
Mariano Fortuny – Silk and Velvets. In the area dedicated to collections, fabrics and paintings, amidst the unique atmosphere of Fortuny’s workshop/studio are exhibited a precious series of Delphos, Mariano Fortuny’s legendary plisse dresses, with hoods, capes, suits and accessories.
Curated by Daniela Ferretti and Claudio Franzini.Above. A detail of a Delphos pleated silk dress with glass beads, 1910-1930. Courtesy of the Riad family.
Giorgio Vigna – Different Natures. A site-specific project developed by Giorgio Vigna for the Wabi-Sabi space in the middle of the third floor. Once again, experimentation with the potential of materials; glass, copper and gold as well as waste materials, are the helm of the artist’s research, in which the natural and artificial, the highly imaginative and sublime meet and clash in works that are suspended somewhere between the possible and the imaginary. The exhibition is divided into eleven moments, eleven different “stations” or moments of meditation in which the material becomes either light or heavy, may turn to incandescent in color, taking on a deceptive consistency or ancestral forms.
Curated by Daniela Ferretti.
Above. Corallo, a Necklace in Murano glass and oxydated copper corals.
Seen at Palazzo Fortuny. Artist, Giorgio Vigna sits next to his Magma Murano glass and copper sculptures. The spherical order captures the rough material. The imperfect and casual form of the furnace “cotisso” celebrated by the perfect form of the translucent sphere.
Nuala Goodman – Gardens. Nuala Goodman, combines art, furniture and design reinterpreting furniture objects and carpets with her printed and hand-finished fabrics with interventions, which give a sensorial quality to the textiles, creating a velvet effect. With their extraordinary sense of color, Nuala’s fabrics mix materials to create a harmonious series of installations created especially for the museum. The exhibition includes Nuala’s Portraits from Milan, a series of painted portraits of leading figures from the world of Italian design.
Curated by Rossella Rossi the exhibition was made possible thanks to the support of Moroso Spa and Clerici Tessuti.
Above. A corner of the exhibition, portraits of Giulio Cappellini, Paola Navone and James Irvine. The sofa is by Moroso.
Seen at Palazzo Fortuny. Artist, Nuala Goodman sits on the Victoria and Albert sofa designed by Ron Arad for Moroso. The sofa is covered in rose red fabric, hand-finished by Nuala with flock pictorial interventions.
Seen at Palazzo Fortuny. Carlo and Marina Ripa di Meana with their adopted son and secretary, Andrea Cardella.
Seen at Palazzo Fortuny. Sally Tadayon Ablemarle and Servane Giol.
Alberto Zorzi – Unicum – Jewellery and Silver Works 2000-2010. Seventy-four unique pieces by Alberto Zorzi: jewellery-sculptures in gold, silver, precious stones, of which six large silver works, that initially appear to be for decorative purposes only, but actually have a function, “turning out to be” vases, fruit bowls or table centre pieces. All these works were created during the last decade and were especially selected by the artist to interact with the site, space, objects, garments and fabrics in the museum.
Curated by Enrico Crispolti.
Above. Unicum – Thinking about Fortuny, 2010, a pendant in gold with yellow and gold rutilated quartz and pink tourmaline.
Above. Unicum – Thinking about Fortuny, 2010, a pendant in gold with yellow and gold rutilated quartz and pink tourmaline.
Seen at Palazzo Fortuny. Paolo Cesari of Cesari & Rinaldi, who produced and cut the stones for the jewels chats with the artist and designer, Alberto Zorzi.
Seen at Palazzo Fortuny. Actress, Lucrezia Lante della Rovere.
Luca Campigotto – My Wild Places. Forty large images by Luca Campigotto offer a journey through nature as a path of initiation and necessity of a photographer’s work, amidst historical references and evocations of films. A combination of the portrayal of spaces and transformation of memory, vast scenes fixed in the intensity of their lights create a ballade for the eye. Steeped in history and expectations, the photographs here evoke the soul of places as if they were inescapable documents of a world that is destined to disappear.
Above. Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina 2000. Pigment print on Epson paper. Courtsey Bugno Art Gallery.
Tip: Click on any photograph to enlarge it.
Seen at Palazzo Fortuny. Photographer and author, Luca Campigotto.
Seen at Palazzo Fortuny. Giordana Ravizza, Skitsch’s Ceo, Renato Preti and curator, Rossella Rossi.
Marco Tirelli. The Marco Tirelli exhibition includes large-sized canvases together with sculptures and other smaller sized works conceived for the museum. The paintings portray architectural and geometrical abstract elements that refer to states of indeterminateness and transit. Essential forms in which the physical object becomes an excuse to cross the border between light and shadow, thus creating a metaphysical relationship with space: here architecture expands until it disappears in an illusory monochrome that envelopes and embraces the viewer, creating and alienating space, a window on perception, a passage way to meditation.
Above. Untitled, 2010, ink and acrylic tempera on canvas. Courtesy Oredaria Arti Contemporanee.
Giorgio Morandi – Silences. Twenty-one sill life paintings by Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), some of which are from private collections and are on public display for the very first time. “Silent and unused or abandoned?” paintings in which colors “vibrate with a slightly subdued brilliance that seems to come from within…a style that belongs perfectly in the perceptive and mental space between the visible and invisible”. An outstanding and unique opportunity to create a whole made of assonance and evocations: on the one hand, with formal research, with Fortuny’s finest details, on the other, with the “metaphysical spaces” of Tirelli, on display on the first and second floors.
Curated by Daniela Ferretti and Franco Calarota.
Above. Natura Morta, 1954, oil on canvas.
Seen at Palazzo Fortuny. Architect, Giovanni Rubin de Cervin.