Bologna: Palazzo Bevilacqua Ariosti – Navid Azimi Sajadi – XX Crossing Over exhibition party.

Bologna: Palazzo Bevilacqua Ariosti – Navid Azimi Sajadi – XX Crossing Over exhibition party. The palazzo Bevilacqua Ariosti is one of Bologna's most remarkable buildings, built in the fifteenth century by jurist Niccolò Sanuti, it was the venue for the exhibition, XX Crossing Over by young Iranian artist Navid Azimi Sajadi.  The exhibition was curated by Eli Sassoli de’ Bianchi and Olivia Spatola and the works  were placed in the internal courtyard and in the grandiose rooms of the Renaissance palazzo.

Above: Around the well, which is topped by a lion, a site-specific eight point star brick structure (which represent Mother Earth) is placed in the internal courtyard.  The courtyard with its two loggias, one over the other, is ornately decorated with sculptures and terra cotta relief works.

 

photograph and copyright manfredi bellati

Palazzo Bevilacqua Ariosti – Navid Azimi Sajadi – XX Crossing Over exhibition party. The hall of Great Council in the Palazzo Bevilacqua Ariosti, venue for the XX Crossing Over exhibition party.

 

Host Ippolito Bevilacqua Ariosti.

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XX Crossing Over - Navid Azimi Sajadi.   In the interior of the hall of Great Council, where the preparatory sessions of the Council of Trento was held, two giant XX’s which represent the female chromosome, were based on a wall of bricks (Mother Earth), in front of which on a five point Iranian carpet, a metaphor of Garden of Eden, a golden egg, majestic in its perfection, a “cosmic egg”, symbol of the creation of the universe and a message of hope for all peoples. The calligraphic marks on its surface formally refer to Persian writing. The image of barbed wire, in addition to that of tangle thoughts, are the implication of violence and blood that barbed wire evokes and persists even conceptually, for those who have eyes to see and whose heart continues to bleed.

XX Crossing Over - Navid Azimi Sajadi. Navid Azimi Sajadi processes the experiences of man (Iranian-born but Western by adoption) before that of an artist, in order to create an artistic language unique to himself, capable of finding a solution to the stylistically harmonious dichotomy: "East-West" through the creation of works and installations where references to Islamic tradition lay deep roots from which vines flourish to re-connect conceptually to a "West" indicated through the development of a set of symbols that look primarily to the Greek-Roman world as a model of aesthetic and a formal excellence to which to refer to.

 

Co-curator of the exhibition Eli Sassoli de’ Bianchi chats to Luisa Davoli.

photograph and copyright manfredi bellati

The drinks table was set up in the impressive hall of Great Council.

Artist Patrizia Medail and entrepreneur Achille Sassoli de’ Bianchi.

Nicoletta Madrigali Calzolari 

photograph and copyright manfredi bellati

One of the sitting rooms off the hall of Great Council.

 

Entrepreneur Stefano Pulsoni and Christie’s Paola Gradi.

 

XX Crossing Over - Navid Azimi Sajadi. A classical statue of Venus is surmounted by an eagle (symbol of the male). The eagle’s head is turned upside down and therefore its presence, first conceptually rather than stylistically, is fitting to the central figure of Venus, symbol at the same time of the strength, beauty and harmony of the female form.   A network of barbed wire encloses and restricts the installation and rises to note, denouncing the reality of violence and abuse on the female condition that Navid Azimi Sajadi perceived as crucial in the construction of all his thought and, therefore, in  the drawing of his artistic career.

The Pool NYC’s young Dealer Viola Romoli and author and curator Sofia Caputo.

Manager Paola Lanzarini and blogger Samina Seyed.

A corner of one of the rooms of the palazzo.

 

Textile and wallpaper designer Idarica Gazzoni.

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XX Crossing Over - Navid Azimi Sajadi. On the main staircase the sculptural work depicting a lying Mary Magdalene, recently attributed to the Master Venetian sculpture Antonio Canova. It is admirably placed in a structure reminiscent to that of the so-called Islamic "muqarnas".

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Bologna: Ex Ospedale degli Innocenti – Add Fire - Premio Furla 2013.

Bologna: Ex Ospedale degli Innocenti – Add Fire - Premio Furla 2013. Established in 2000, and conceived and curated by Chiara Bertola, the Premio Furla aims to support the finest artistic efforts in Italy by monitoring, selecting and training new artists, and facilitating the production of new works. Five Italian curators, each backed by a foreign guest curator, selected the five finalists artists, which are on show, until February 6, in the monumental building of the Ex Ospedale degli Innocenti in the center of town. The title of the exhibit, the ninth so far, is Add Fire, Jimmi Durham, patron artist of the 2013 Premio Furla, who specially created the logo.

Above: Installation by winner Chiara Fumai, Chiara Fumai Legge Valerie Solanas or Chiara Fumai reads Valerie Solanas.

Add Fire - Premio Furla 2013: And the winner is…. Chiara Fumai. In Chiara Fumai Legge Valerie Solanas, the writer Valerie Solanas (1936-1988) partly takes over the body and voice of Chiara Fumai to recite together with her, excerpts from the SCUM Manifesto in its original language of English.  Written by Solanas in 1967, the purpose of the manifesto was to demonstrate the inferiority of men, and it consequently became a criticism of women who behave submissively towards men.

Add Fire - Premio Furla 2013 – Chiara Fumai. To explain Solanas’ main arguments from a scientific and objective point of view, Fumai creates a diagram containing video performance reminiscent of a declaration of war or an announcement to enter politics.

   

Add Fire - Premio Furla 2013 – Chiara Fumai.  The diagram allows you to distance yourself from the contents of the manifesto, per se, instead of focusing on the breadth of its message.  Tragic, but at the same time comical, the work examines the function of language and its subversive capabilities.

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Friuli: Lifestyle – A Couscous Lunch

photograph and copyright by manfredi bellati

Friuli: Lifestyle – A Couscous Lunch. At the palazzo L’Agricola, a former agricultural building, in a charming hamlet in a little town of the Fiuli region of northern Italy, a couscous lunch was elegantly prepared.

 

A Couscous lunch. Our host, the gentleman, designer and aesthetic Carlo Piccolomini with his Cavalier King Charles, Titania are photographed by the upstairs fireplace over which hangs a portrait by Manfredi Bellati of the adorable Spaniel.

 

The elegance and simplicity of the table settings in the dinning room welcomes guests with two tables in front of the fireplace.  

The cheese soufflés.

On the kitchen table the meal is ready to be served

Cheese Soufles

Couscous

Vegetables cooked in broth

Ratatouille

Harissa

Cooked Fennel and poppy seed salad

Pumpkin and Spinach Quiches

Assortment of cheeses from the Natisone Valley and Gorgonzola

Mostarda Veneta

Cousous with ratatouille and vegetables cooked in broth.

The cheeseboard. On the cheeseboard two local cheeses, from the Matayur region in the Valley of Natisone, they are made with unpasteurized milk, together with a classic Gorgonzola dolce, are all delicious eaten with Mostarda Veneta, boiled fruit in a spicy syrup.

The desserts: A chestnut semifreddo together with traditional deep fried carnival pastries were a delicious  ending to the meal.

 

Carlo Piccolomini and his sister Benedetta Piccolomini who is a garden designer and who together with landscape architect, Paolo Sgaravatti and neurologist, Francesca Meneghello are the driving force behind The Healing Garden, Un Giardino Per Rivivere, at the San Camillo Hospital on the Lido in Venice.   It’s a healing garden for the senses, a natural place, where sound, touch, color and smell contribute a therapeutic relief to suffering for the patients. Please contact the website if you would like to donate time or money for this worthwhile project, which hopefully will be ready this summer.

The guests are happy.

 

And... Titania hopes there are leftovers.

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Codroipo: Villa Manin – Giambattista Tiepolo exhibition.

 

photograph and copyright manfredi bellati

Codroipo: Villa Manin – Giambattista Tiepolo exhibition. The majestic ensemble of Villa Manin, located in Passariano, Codroipo near Udine, is the venue for the Giambattista Tiepolo exhibition, on view until April 7. The villa is one of the most important artistic monuments in Friuli Venezia Giulia. It was commissioned in the 17th century by Ludovico I Manin to celebrate the wealth and power of the Manin family, and it was the family’s country house.  I find that it is a pity that the shutters on windows are shut on the central block, giving the villa a sense of unwelcomed ‘neglect’, though inside it is very much ‘alive’ with this beautifully installed exhibition.

 photograph and copyright manfredi bellati

 

 

 On the lateral portico banners announce the Giambattista Tiepolo exhibition, curated by Giuseppe Bergamini, Alberto Craievich and Filippo Pedrocco, over sixty paintings and seventy drawings are on show.

 Photograph courtesy Villa Manin

Villa Manin – Giambattista Tiepolo exhibition. Tiepolo was arguably the most famous Venetian painter in the eighteenth century, the tireless creator of monumental paintings on canvas or frescoes, the indisputable holder of the monopoly of palace decorating both in Venice and on the mainland. Princes and kings from all over Europe contended for his services. The exhibition chronicles his long and prolific activity through a group of particularly significant works, depicting religious and secular subjects, and best representing the enormous variety of works that were commissioned to the painter: allegorical ceilings, altar pieces, decorations in villas.

Above: Abraham visited by the Angels – Venice, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, oil on canvas.

Contessanally note: Except for the audio, there are no English or any other foreign language texts in the exhibition, not even in the catalogue. It still amazes me how these expensive important exhibitions are mounted in a globalized world without the aspiration of attracting foreign visitors.

 

photograph and copyright manfredi bellati

Villa Manin – Giambattista Tiepolo exhibition. The exhibition also includes several enormous paintings since, as the painter himself once said, "Painters must be able to carry out large works [...] hence the Painter's mind must always strive to achieve Sublimation, Heroism, Perfection".  

Above:  an 1894 quote on Tiepolo by American art historian, Bernard Berenson, “The sensitivity of Tiepolo, for strength, movement, color was large enough to give a new impulse to art.  Sometimes he seems not so much the last of the old masters, but the first of the new.”

 

Santa Cecilia – 1763-1765 – Barcellona Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.

 

 

Villa Manin – Giambattista Tiepolo exhibition. In some cases, the elaborate preparatory work - from the drawings to the sketch and finally to the completed work - is displayed in such great detail that one feels deeply engrossed in Tiepolo's magical world. Particularly delightful are the paintings with historical or mythological subjects, where the painter released his impetuous artistic ability to the full: he did not restrict himself to depicting famous past events, but went on to examine the inner disposition of his characters, bringing to the fore their passions and personal qualities. Equally important and of great emotional impact are the paintings commissioned for churches, as they remind us that Tiepolo was the last inspired painter of Western sacred art.

Above: Study of male character with his hands behind his back – white and red chalk.

The famous Italian dramatist Carlo Goldoni defined Villa Manin and its grand park as “a dwelling fit for a king” and the awe it inspires is still the same today. 

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