Ytalia_Energy Thought Beauty

YTALIA Energy Thought Beauty All is connected

Mario Merz Giovanni Anselmo Jannis Kounellis Luciano Fabro Giulio Paolini Alighiero Boetti Remo Salvadori Gino De Dominicis Mimmo Paladino Marco Bagnoli Nunzio Domenico Bianchi

Index

Dario Nardella Eike Schmidt Irene Sanesi Patrizia Asproni

4 6 7 7

Ytalia.

Energy, Thought, Beauty.

All is Connected Sergio Risaliti

8

A Gaze from Afar Rudi Fuchs

The Artists Mario Merz Bartolomeo Pietromarchi

186

Giovanni Anselmo 188 Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev Jannis Kounellis Ludovico Pratesi

190

Luciano Fabro Gaspare Luigi Marcone

192

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Giulio Paolini Lara Conte

194

Ytalia Giovanni Iovane

22

Alighiero Boetti Elena Magini

196

Vertical Artists Italo Tomassoni

26

Remo Salvadori Lorenzo Giusti

198

On Some Earlier National Portrayals Marco Bazzini

Gino De Dominicis Laura Cherubini

200

Mimmo Paladino Arabella Natalini

202

Marco Bagnoli Andrea Viliani

204

Ytalia Forte di Belvedere

32

Palazzo Vecchio

106

Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture degli Uffizi

114

Nunzio Valentino Catricalà

206

Galleria Palatina

120

Domenico Bianchi Helga Marsala

208

Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Palazzo Pitti

130

Giardino di Boboli

138 142

Exhibition Locations Roberta Masucci Valentina Zucchi

210

Complesso Monumentale di Santa Croce Museo Marino Marini

158

Works in Exhibition

214

Museo Novecento

170

Selected Bibliography

218

Appendix

Photographs by Agostino Osio – Alto Piano

Ytalia. Energy, Thought, Beauty.

All is Connected Sergio Risaliti

1. L. Bellosi, La pecora di Giotto, Einaudi, Turin, 1985.

8

“In Italy? Yes, in an antique Italy that is always the same as the before or after of something that is immutable, made up of echoes and reflections that are always recognizable, unique even in their strained actuality. Nothing, or almost nothing, will ever arise (but only rise again) from a land that is as abused, as disfigured, as ours. Yet here we are, happily and proudly without a future.”

Giulio Paolini

Italy is a republic founded on art and beauty; and we could add that it is a republic founded and re-founded by artists. The start of this, the first visual document, is in Assisi, on one of the vaults above the presbytery in the Basilica Superiore. Here, between saints and apostles, Cimabue wrote “Ytalia” on the side of an emblematic urban representation. For the painter that handful of buildings represented Rome, squeezed into its walls and seen from above. From our distance we can distinguish some glorious buildings: Castel Santangelo, San Pietro or San Giovanni in Laterano, the Pantheon, Palazzo Senatorio and the Conti Tower.1 The city is the eternal one, a survivor of barbarism in its bright ruins, and the new one, already modern and representing the very first affirmation of the existence of Italian civilization in its sublime stratification. A cultural and artistic universe to be looked after, to feel a part of and to be a promoter of. With that primitive signage, Cimabue told us that national boundaries – between 1280 and 1290, when the “Greek manner” was on its way out – were artistic before they were political, and that national identity – both visual and linguistic – was an accumulation of classical and humanistic culture, of pagan beauty and Christian spirituality, of Latin and vernacular vocabulary. Something special and unique, an organic dialectic of models, traditions, sources, between cities and regions, between East and West, from North to South.

In the end, not much has changed over the centuries. Italy is still the country of art and beauty and artists guide its destiny, even in moments of great decadence, or decomposition. To be more precise, it is a land of old reminiscences and renewed rebirths. So it was, between light and shadow, ebb and flow, from the 14th to the 17th centuries, times of absolute splendour, and until the 1900s. In this sense, within the international art community, Italian Art – from Giotto to Piero della Francesca, from Michelangelo to Caravaggio, from the Futurists to De Chirico and beyond (Arte Povera and Transavanguardia) – has created a school, it has been an example for the whole world, because in our artefacts, of which such an antique territory as ours is so full, one can appreciate the perfect balance between invention and citation, immanence and transcendence, rules and transgressions, high and low “talk”.

It seems, therefore, that Italian artists have always looked at the mysterious, numinous side of art, that of the image as a mirror of a higher truth. Thus at the unchanging truth of things and of ourselves, of heaven and of earth. As a result they believed in the illusion and the distance, in the unreachable and the untouchable of art, without ever forgetting that in art the idea is a visible thing, an artificial human product. Proof of this are those works, or images, that live in a kind of eternal present and that from

Cimabue, Volta dei quattro Evangelisti, Basilica Superiore di San Francesco, Assisi, 1277-1283 ca., fresco (detail)

that distance – so alienating and so familiar – provoke emotion, wonder, enchantment, a feeling of bliss, liberating us from that anguish that oppresses us mortals. For centuries, just as the saints have pitted good against bad, artists in Italy have pitted beauty against ugliness, harmony against chaos, symmetry against disorder. Setting their precious gems in civil architecture, they have shown the limits of human dignity and liberty. The world, even today, persists in this demand. Art lovers, with their variable tastes, demand from Italy, which is still the ultimate destination of the grand tour, nothing less than true beauty.

In the game of cultural exchanges between countries, it is important to remember how the Italian artists of the 20th century have influenced the developments of art and tradition in Europe and beyond, offering their explorations, their imagination and their creations as an example. So the poetics of our greatest craftsmen were, and still are today, objects of study, constantly inspiring new scientific evaluations in the academic community worldwide. Perusing the bulky volume published by Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois and Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Art Since 1900, one of the most influential textbooks of our time, we discover, for example, that the Italian 20th century, even in terms of single personalities of single artists, and not just in terms of collective movements and currents, carried much more weight than its 19th century or even 18th century counterparts; a cultural role underestimated by most of the scientific world, by the Soprintendenze and by the ministries, due to short-sighted conservatism and historiographical and critical backwardness. Going beyond the so-called “short-century”, we have the certainty that the Italian factory is one big family, at least with regard to art, and that there is no distance between the ages when the experience of art is that of a vertical experience and knowledge: from the chthonic world to the celestial one, from the big whole to the almost nothing of a fragment, toward the zenith and infinity. Artists need the proximity of artists, the works come together as if in celebration, for a ritual, for a ceremony. An exhibition that offers the public the opportunity to see the works of some of the major Italian artists of our time is always an important event, as much for the discussions that it provokes as for the emotions and reflections that it evokes and regenerates.

By putting contemporary Italian Art in the heart of Florence and its heritage, one can measure its energy, power and fascination, compared to today’s world and past history. Between historical times and poetic times, between the return and the avoidance of formal codes, symbols and iconography. But we must have the courage to consider the art of today in another perspective.

Florence is the city of the universality of art, where man was conceived at the centre of the world, where micro-cosmos and macro-cosmos have mirrored and understood each other artistically and poetically, mathematically and spiritually. We believe that the artists featured in this exhibition are still interpreters of the modern experience of the universality of art, of that artistic and poetic humanism that emerged from the ruins of the classical world, prompting the rebirth and dialectic between eras, geographies, myths and forms. Today other ruins pile up, first and foremost those of art as an enigma and dream, as imagination and reminiscence.

In order to best emphasize these characteristics and values, as well as to mark the relationship between works and time, history and past artefacts, the Ytalia exhibition includes the most important museums and public and religious buildings of the city: Palazzo Vecchio and the Gallerie degli Uffizi, the Basilica di Santa Croce and the Museo Marino Marini, the Giardino di Boboli and the Museo Novecento. To create a centre of the contemporary disseminated in the heart of Florence, between indoors and outdoors, Middle Ages and Renaissance, museums and gardens, basilicas and palaces, chapels and frescoed rooms, cloisters and crypts.

To provide continuity in the stratification of forms and concepts individually diversified in a common, figurative koinè, one that has established itself

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Mario Merz Giovanni Anselmo Jannis Kounellis Luciano Fabro Giulio Paolini Alighiero Boetti Remo Salvadori Gino De Dominicis Mimmo Paladino Marco Bagnoli Nunzio Domenico Bianchi

Jannis Kounellis

Space and its Ghosts

[Pireo, Greece 1936 - Rome 2017]

190

“The identity of modern Europe feeds on diversity. Europeans do not possess the monumental certainties of the Americans; moreover, the intensity of the tragedies experienced by Europe has caused it to adopt a critical attitude to many things. This is what it means to be European: they maintain their diffidence, their distance and their critical thinking. Europe will never have a single flag, it will have many, but this does not make us less European, in fact it is quite the contrary.”1 These are the words of Jannis Kounellis, one of the major international contemporary artists, born in Piraeus in 1936, and who died suddenly on 16 February 2016, in Rome, at the age of 80. Although born in Greece, he chose to live in Italy, where he arrived in 1956, at the age of 20. He wanted to discover the Renaissance, absorb the vitality of Masaccio and Caravaggio, whom he defined as ideological painters: “They had a huge impact on my life. Their paintings do not have the medieval dogmatism of a Greek icon. They were people who signed their own poetic visions and defended them. This signature also includes Modernity in its painting.”2 Kounellis would stride forward, eyes fixed on the horizon like the captain of a sailing ship at sea, his gaze capturing the complexity of the world which he managed to express with powerful epic works, always conceived like painted images. “I am a painter, but my canvas is space,” he would say. Kounellis was a militant like Pier Paolo Pasolini, a poet like Homer, a visionary who had pointed his finger at that fine ridge that separates the ancient rural world from modern industrial reality. To express it, he chose a language of symbolic objects: sacks of coal, steel beams, metal plates, men’s clothing, and live animals. Canaries, a parrot, mice, but above all, horses: those twelve horses on show for four days in 1969 in the L’Attico gallery, a huge garage in the explosive art scene of Rome in the sixties. “The decision to exhibit live horses, throbbing with vital energy, with their smell and dynamic physiology, inevitably and deliberately created a range of dialogues between the sensitivity of the subjects, as living animals, and their structure,” commented Mario Codognato3. After the experience at the L’Attico gallery, Kounellis returned with his horses in the summer of 2016 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the foundation of the Centro Arti Visive Pescheria in Pesaro with an exhibition that I had the honour of curating. Stimulated by the space (a twelve-sided former church) Kounellis created the work Senza Titolo [Untitled] (2016): a kind of procession composed of wagons covered with men’s coats, pulled by a horse around a circular track, and accompanied by a person dressed in dark clothing. “The first thing that struck me was the church, with its unusual geometry, that inspired the idea of an endless track with no end and no beginning,” the artist explained.4 A strong, intense image.

Almost a funeral procession, endlessly repeated without direction or time.

A reminder of the mining wagons of the industrial world of the previous century, but also the tragedy of the railway wagons heading to the concentration camps.

The presence of the horse in the Pesaro exhibition – which I wish to recall because it was the last exhibition in Italy by the artist before his death – was not chosen for its links with nature or the history of art, but as a narrative element, part of a story. It was almost an archetype of the moment of passage between the old rural farming existence and modern industrial life. The artist wanted to hold this moment, this vision, inspired by the architectural structure of the church. “The fundamental problem is the relationship with spaces: they are not empty but retain memories; they are inhabited by ghosts of the past. Ghosts condition your work, they interfere with an imagination that is too free and not linked with the memory of the place. This work is an endless ritual, it reminds me of Neapolitan funerals,”5 said Kounellis.

Apart from the definition suggested by the artist, in the dark austerity

Jannis Kounellis, Sant’Andrea di Sorbello, Arezzo, 2015.

Photo Michelle Coudray

of the installation there are elements that recall certain descriptions in the pages of The Notebook Trilogy (1986) by Hungarian author Agota Kristof, or from works by the Polish theatre director, Tadeusz Kantor.

There are no direct references, but allusions to a past that blends with the present, nourishing the imaginary to strengthen its evocative impact.

The single elements of the installation – horse, wagons, coats – are part of the artist’s language, arranged here to emphasise a circular motion without beginning or end, with the obsessive rhythm of a dramatic mantra, punctuated only by the noise of iron wheels on rails and horses’ hooves on paving stones. An image that closes a cycle, summarising an epic work begun in 1969, almost a unique narrative constructed around a plot of symbols and meanings that Jannis Kounellis has exhibited in museums around the world, including Germany, Mexico, Brazil and Russia. Each time he added a new element to his formal imaginary, arranged to suggest a different viewpoint, aimed at triggering a reflection on the present interpreted through the past. Ancient and contemporary at the same time, his work has taught the strength of art with moral ethics, deeply steeped in European culture.

Invited by Sergio Risaliti to participate in the Ytalia exhibition, the artist’s work is on show in the Hall of Lilies in the Palazzo Vecchio, site of one of the most wonderful masterpieces of Renaissance sculpture: Judith and Holofernes (1453-1457) by Donatello. Kounellis’ work Senza Titolo [Untitled], represents the second version of Cactus e Pappagallo [Cactus and Parrot], exhibited at the L’Attico gallery in 1967. In that show, the cactus plants protruded from a completely closed container, while the work shown at the Palazzo Vecchio is composed of four long containers in which cactus plants grow in strips of soil. It resembles a bare desert garden that could recall Mesopotamia, the land where Holofernes was decapitated by Judith, interpreted by Donatello as a tragic Biblical heroine, symbol of the triumph of virtue over evil since Medieval times. The dialogue between the two works, both based on a strict formal structure, creates a comparison linked with the moral quality of art, resolved by Kounellis with a tamed but not repressed, form of nature, able to resist the advance of technology.

“We need to carve problems and pain into the flesh of painting,” said Kounellis. In the encounter with Donatello’s sculpture, which he visited just before his death,6 he had seen how contemporary art is able to assume a civic and public significance, increasingly more necessary in times of political and social uncertainty like those the world is currently undergoing.

Ludovico Pratesi

1. J. Kounellis, “Il dubbio, l’arte, la passione civile”, in Micromega, no. 3, 2004, pp. 172-177.

2. Ibid.

3. M. Codognato, “Le radici del viaggio”, in E. Cicelyn, M. Codognato (edited by), Kounellis, exhibition catalogue (Naples, MADRE Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, 2006), Milan, 2006, p. 27.

4. From a conversation between the artist and the author, in Pesaro, during the staging of the exhibition at the Centro Arti Visive Pescheria, July 11, 2016.

5. Ibid.

6. S. Risaliti, “Io e Kounellis”, Corriere Fiorentino, 18 February 2017.

191

Works in Exhibition Forte di Belvedere Exterior Giovanni Anselmo Dove le stelle si avvicinano di una spanna in più 2001-2017 stones, incision 27 blocks, approx 25 × 70 × 100 cm each, 1 engraved block 25 × 60 × 80 cm, installed work, variable dimensions Courtesy of the artist and Tucci Russo Studio per l’Arte Contemporanea, Torre Pellice (pp. 31, 34-35, 37) Marco Bagnoli Ascolta il flauto di canna 1986 painted aluminium, sound 1000 × 5 × 5 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 64-65, 66-67) Noli me tangere 1997-2017 marble, steel, water approx 350 × 350 × 350 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 65, 67) Si sedes non is 1989-2017 iron, resin 500 × 450 × 450 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 30, 47, 49) Si non sedes is 1989-2017 steel, resin 500 × 450 × 450 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 31, 34, 38)

Domenico Bianchi Undici Panchine 2009-2017 Carrara white marble, Bardiglio marble, pink marble, Cardoso marble, inlay, lapis lazuli approx 220 × 70 × 50 cm each, installed work, variable dimensions Courtesy of the artist; Courtesy Collezione MADRE - Museo d’Arte contemporanea Donnaregina, Napoli; Courtesy Private Collection, Torino; Courtesy Collezione Albergo Pietrasanta (pp. 60-61, 62, 63) Alighiero Boetti Autoritratto 1993-1995 (5/7) bronze 205 × 90 × 60 cm Fondazione Alighiero e Boetti, Roma. Courtesy Giordano Boetti (pp. 71, 73) Gino De Dominicis Calamita cosmica late 1980s iron, polystyrene, gypsum, fiberglass, synthetic paint approx 22.55 × 9.13 × 3.16 m Courtesy Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Foligno (pp. 30-31, 42-43, 44-45, 48, 57) Luciano Fabro Zefiro 1987 zebrino marble, masonite 230 × 150 × 150 cm Courtesy Private Collection (p. 59) Esprit de géométrie Esprit de finesse (Colonna) 1984 zebrino marble 400 × 50 cm Courtesy Private Collection, Milano (pp. 49, 51)

214

Italia Porta 1985-2006 corrugated iron 250 × 280 × 10 cm Courtesy Private Collection, Milano (p. 33) Balcone (Nudi) 1988 marble 5 elements variable dimensions, approx 10 × 200 × 60 cm each Courtesy Private Collection (pp. 30, 52-53, 68-69) Nunzio Senza Titolo 2004 corten steel 240 × 357 × 75.5 cm Courtesy Galleria Giorgio Persano (pp. 56, 57) Senza Titolo 2004 corten steel 240 × 357 × 75.6 cm Courtesy Galleria Giorgio Persano (p. 57) Remo Salvadori Nel momento 2017 lead, copper, tin, silver variable dimensions Courtesy of the artist (pp. 52-53, 54, 55, 70) Uomo che ode 1978-2017 copper, tin 500 × 180 cm Courtesy Roberto Lombardi (pp. 30, 46, 49) Continuo infinito presente 2008 steel ø 440 × 9 cm Courtesy Stein (pp. 30, 46, 49) Anfora e modello 1984-2017 copper, tin 430 × 95 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 31, 34, 40)

Cubo 2017 lead, copper 105 × 105 × 115 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 30, 53) Interior Giovanni Anselmo Verso l’infinito 1969 iron, incision, clear coating 16 × 21 × 39 cm Courtesy Private Collection (pp. 78, 79) Marco Bagnoli Quba (scacchiera) 1991 iron, alabaster 150 × 150 × 12 cm Courtesy Private Collection, Torino Origine 1992 porcelain, glass ø 30 cm Courtesy Private Collection, Genova (p. 90) Aleph (Keplero inciso) 6 fondo oltremare 1978-1998 mecca and mixed technique on board 152 × 152 × 10 cm Courtesy Banca Ifigest (p. 90) Janua Coeli 1988 copper ø 90 × 23 cm Courtesy Private Collection, Paris (p. 90) Aleph (Keplero inciso) 7 fondo cinabro 1978-1998 mecca and mixed technique on board 152 × 152 × 10 cm Courtesy Banca Ifigest (p. 91)

Domenico Bianchi Senza Titolo 2016 wax and oil on fiberglass 140 × 110 × 4 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 94-95, 97) Senza Titolo 2016 wax and palladium on fiberglass 60 × 80 × 3 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 98-99, 101) Alighiero Boetti Senza Titolo 1994 carpet, wool and cotton approx 400 × 280 cm Courtesy Collezione Bertinetti, Torino (pp. 104-105) Senza Titolo 1994 carpet, wool and cotton 387 × 305 cm Fondazione Alighiero e Boetti, Roma. Courtesy Caterina Raganelli Boetti (pp. 102, 103) Mario Merz Igloo 1991 iron, clamps, stones 150 × ø 300 cm Courtesy Collezione Merz, Torino (p. 74) Piccolo caimano 1979 taxidermied caiman, neon variable dimensions Courtesy Private Collection (pp. 74, 76-77) Impermeabile 1966 raincoat, neon, wood, wax 125 × 70 × 40 cm Courtesy Sergio Casoli (p. 75)

Senza titolo n.d. mixed media on canvas 244 × 258 cm Courtesy Collezione Merz, Torino (p. 104) Testuggine 1980 oil on canvas 242 × 256 cm Courtesy Collezione Merz, Torino (p. 105) Nunzio Peristilio 2016 combustion on wood 220 × 48 × 60 cm Courtesy Galleria Giorgio Persano (p. 88) Senza Titolo 2012 drawings 250 × 490 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 88-89) Senza Titolo 2017 lead on wood 42 × 78 × 4 cm Courtesy of the artist (not in catalogue) Mimmo Paladino Pozzo di eroi 1983 oil and wood on canvas 205 × 305 × 12 cm Courtesy Claudio Poleschi, Arte Contemporanea Lucca (p. 103) Parade 1985 oil and wood on canvas 260 × 210 × 20 cm Courtesy Giacomo e David Poleschi (p. 104)

Giulio Paolini Dopo la fine (L’Ermafrodito) 2017 pre-prepared canvas, plaster casts, digital printing on acrylic fabric, painted wooden pallets 88 × 392 × 230 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 80-81, 83) Immacolata Concezione – Senza Titolo/Senza autore 2007-2008 reflecting plexiglas, plexiglas plate with carved drawing, crystal ball, photographic enlargement overall measurements 202 × 255 × 260 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 84-85, 87) Remo Salvadori Continuo infinito presente 2008 steel ø 220 × 7 cm (14 elements) Courtesy Stein (pp. 92-93) Due tazze 2014 watercolor, paper, copper 80 × 67 × 0,3 cm Courtesy of the artist (p. 92) L’Osservatore non l’oggetto osservato 1981-2017 iron, gold 165 × 64 × 65 × 2 cm Courtesy of the artist (p. 92)

Palazzo Vecchio Jannis Kounellis Senza Titolo 2005 lead, cloth, soil, cactus 400 × 400 × 120 cm Courtesy Damiano Kounellis (pp. 110, 113) Giulio Paolini La Casa di Lucrezio 1981 plaster casts, textiles, carved plaster, wood 8 elements 120 × 30 × 30 cm each (variable overall measurements) Courtesy Private Collection (pp. 107, 108, 109)

Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture degli Uffizi Jannis Kounellis Senza Titolo 1992 iron, stone, wool blanket 100 × 70 × 25 cm Courtesy Collezione Maccaferri (p. 118) Giulio Paolini Dentro e fuori 2017 transparent and mirrored plexiglas, crystal ball 36 × 95 × 95 cm Courtesy of the artist (pp. 115, 116, 117)

Galleria Palatina Domenico Bianchi Senza Titolo 2017 silver on wood 160 × 128 × 9 cm Courtesy of the artist (p. 129) Alighiero Boetti Alternando da uno a cento e viceversa 1993 kilim in wool and cotton 6 elements 284.5 × 272 cm each Fondazione Alighiero e Boetti, Roma. Courtesy Giordano Boetti (pp. 125, 126-127) Mappa 1990-91 embroidery on canvas 114.3 × 214 cm Fondazione Alighiero e Boetti, Roma. Courtesy Caterina Raganelli Boetti (pp. 125, 127) Mappa 1983-84 embroidery on canvas 116 × 178 cm TornabuoniArte.

Courtesy Private Collection, Firenze (p. 126)

Giulio Paolini L'altra Figura 1984 plaster, wood 184 × 250 × 190 cm edition 3/6 Courtesy Collezione Bertinetti, Torino (pp. 124, 125) Elegia 1969 plaster, mirrored glass 15 × 15 × 11 cm edition 2/3 Courtesy Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini (pp. 122, 123)

Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Palazzo Pitti Mario Merz Verso lo zenit 1985 metal, wood, wax, steel wool 280 × 200 × 200 cm Courtesy Sergio Casoli (p. 134) Igloo con albero 1968-1969 iron piping, glass, stucco, a branch 110 × ø 230 cm (igloo), 247 cm (branch) Courtesy Collezione Margherita Stein; Proprietà Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT; Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino (pp. 131, 132) I giganti boscaiuoli 1981-1982 oil, acrylic, charcoal and neon on canvas 249 × 584.2 cm Courtesy Gemma De Angelis Testa, Milano (pp. 136-137)

Luciano Fabro Italia d’oro 1971 gilded bronze, steel cable, metal clamps approx 75 × 45 cm Courtesy Private Collection, Milano (p. 121)

Ecce homo 1985-1997 copper 200 × 100 × 0.5 cm Courtesy of the artist (p. 93) Linea di Mercurio 1995-2003 glass, mercury 80 × ø 1.5 cm Courtesy of the artist (not in catalogue)

215

Editorial project Forma Edizioni srl, Florence, Italy redazione@formaedizioni.it www.formaedizioni.it Editorial production Archea Associati Editorial director Laura Andreini Textual supervision Riccardo Bruscagli Editorial staff Valentina Muscedra Maria Giulia Caliri Beatrice Papucci Ilaria Rondina Graphic design Elisa Balducci Vitoria Muzi Isabella Peruzzi Mauro Sampaolesi

Editor of the catalogue Sergio Risaliti Photographs Agostino Osio and Marco Dabbicco Translations Vanessa Di Stefano Katy Hannan Karen Whittle Herman van der Heide Photolithography LAB di Gallotti Giuseppe Fulvio, Florence, Italy Printing Lito Terrazzi, Florence, Italy

© Alighiero Boetti, by SIAE 2017 © Domenico Bianchi, by SIAE 2017 © Gino De Dominicis, by SIAE 2017 © Jannis Kounellis, by SIAE 2017 © Mario Merz, by SIAE 2017 © Mimmo Paladino, by SIAE 2017 © Giuseppe Penone, by SIAE 2017

organised by

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Works © The artists, 2017 donor

Texts © The authors, 2017 Photographs © Alto Piano srl © Archivio Bianchi, pp. 97, 101

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The editor is available to copyright holders for any questions about unidentified iconographic sources. © 2017 Forma Edizioni srl, Florence, Italy All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

First edition: June 2017 ISBN: 978-88-99534-36-3

in collaboration with

For the work Calamita cosimca

by Gino De Dominicis, our thanks to

YTALIA

Florence 2 June – 1 October 2017

Energy Thought Beauty All is connected

Mario Merz Giovanni Anselmo Jannis Kounellis Luciano Fabro Giulio Paolini Alighiero Boetti Remo Salvadori Gino De Dominicis Mimmo Paladino Marco Bagnoli Nunzio Domenico Bianchi

Promoted by Comune di Firenze

We would like to thank Dario Nardella, Mayor of Florence

In collaboration with Gallerie degli Uffizi Opera di Santa Croce Museo Marino Marini

Matteo Spanò, President of MUS.E

Artistic direction and conception Sergio Risaliti

Andrea Pessina, Director of the Superintendence of Fine Arts and Landscape for the Provinces of Florence, Pistoia and Prato

Exhibition organization MUS.E Roberta Masucci, Mita Papi, Barbara Rapaccini, Davide Serufilli Main sponsor Edizione Property Main Donor Leo France Donor Egea Euro Stampaggi Faliero Sarti Faggi Enrico Sponsor Carpisa Manetti & Roberts Technical sponsor AEFFE Forma Edizioni Partner Fondazione Studio Marangoni Profili Art work insurance Mag Jlt Staging supervision MUS.E Catalogue Forma Edizioni Technical direction FEM Architettura Exhibition texts MUS.E Stefania Rispoli Visual identity and graphics design Mallet - Design Studio Press office Opera Laboratori Fiorentini – Gruppo Civita Salvatore La Spina, Barbara Izzo, Arianna Diana Comune di Firenze Elisa Di Lupo MUS.E Daniele Pasquini

Forte di Belvedere Palazzo Vecchio Galleria della Statue e delle Pitture degli Uffizi Galleria Palatina Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Palazzo Pitti Giardino di Boboli Complesso Monumentale di Santa Croce Museo Marino Marini Museo Novecento

Alessandra Marino, Superintendent of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the City of Florence and the Provinces of Pistoia and Prato

Eike Schmidt, Director of Gallerie degli Uffizi Irene Sanesi, President of Opera di Santa Croce Patrizia Asproni, President of Museo Marino Marini The Municipality of Florence staff and in particular for the Mayor’s Cabinet Office Francesca Santoro, Marco Agnoletti, Carmela Valdevies, Manuele Braghero, Rita Corsini, Tommaso Sacchi; for the Florence Cultural Department Gabriella Farsi, Silvia Penna, Antonella Nesi, Serena Pini and all the staff of the Florence Civic Museums The staff of MUS.E Elena Arsenio, Andrea Batistini, Andrea Bianchi, Paolo Borghigiani, Daniela Carboni, Giovanni Carta, Monica Consoli, Angela Corbo, Elisa Frego, Valentina Gensini, Mattia Marasco, Cecilia Pappaianni, Rosella Pistelli, Pier Luigi Ricciardelli, Chiara Romei, Lorenzo Valloriani, Valentina Zucchi Our special thanks to All the lenders of the exhibition Archivio Luciano e Carla Fabro, Banca Ifigest, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Foligno, Fondazione Donna Regina per le Arti Contemporanee, Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini, Galerie Tschudi, Galleria Christian Stein, Galleria Giorgio Persano, Leo France, Tucci Russo Studio per l’Arte Contemporanea, Giovanni Anselmo, Marco Bagnoli, Maurizio Bertinetti, Domenico Bianchi, Agata Boetti, Caterina Raganelli Boetti, Giordano Boetti, Matteo Boetti, Ariedo Braida, Roberto Casamonti, Sergio Casoli, Silvia Chessa, Damiano Kounellis, Michelle Coudray Kounellis, Gaetano Maccaferri, Beatrice Merz, Marco Noire, Nunzio, Mimmo Paladino, Ida Pisani, Claudio Poleschi Arte Contemporanea, Giacomo e David Poleschi, Marco Rossi, Remo Salvadori, Rosa e Gilberto Sandretto, Moshé Tabibnia, Gemma De Angelis Testa, Italo Tomassoni All those who collaborated in the staging of this exhibition, in particular Laura Andreini, Elisa Ascani, Giulia Basilissi, Gianfranco Benedetti, Sally Benjamin, Anna Bisceglia, Gianni Bossini, Maria Giulia Caliri, Renato Cardi, Marco Casamonti, Michele Casamonti, Matteo Ceriana, Silvia Chessa, Eduardo Cicelyn, Simonella Condemi, Marco Dabbicco, Giuseppe De Micheli,

Sara De Tullio, Alessandro Del Poeta, Silvia Fabro, Daniele Faggioli, Alberta Ferretti, Giuseppe Fulvio Gallotti, Daniela Giachi, Antonio Godoli, Gianfranco Gorgoni, Silvia Gozzi, Rossella Lari, Isabella Lastrucci, Mauro Linari, Camilla Lumini, Barbara Maccaferri, Alberto Magni, Niccolò Manetti, Mara Martini, Simone Marzola, Luciano Massari, Mazzoleni Torino/London, Stefano Morelli, Marco Nencetti, Antonella Nicola, Agostino Osio, Marco Pancani, Beatrice Papucci, Valentina Pero, Isabella Peruzzi, Lia Pescatori, Patrizia Pisani, Alberto Recami, Silvia Recami, Ilaria Rondina, Lisa e Tucci Russo, Mauro Sampaolesi, Elvis Shkambi, Irene Sorani, Gabriella Sorelli, Giorgio Spanu, Tntevents - Niki Turchi, Eleonora Traversa, Sandra Urbani, Alberto Verdiani Artists and lenders collaborators Davide Basegni, Mariano Boggia, Diego Bortolozzo, Filippo Cacciari, Daniela Cadosch, Simone Calamai, Pompeo Capitanio, Marco Cardone, Daniel Carunto, Vittorio Cavallini, Massimo Cimboli, Antonio Dalle Lucche, Bettina Della Casa, Filippo Di Giovanni, Maddalena Disch, Raoul Esposito, Gianluca Fioccardi, Carla Francioni, Francesca Franco, Alessia Fratini, Fonderia Maf/Filippo Mancuso, Lino Grecchi, Lilian Istrati, Maurizio Lanzetta, Claudio Lenzini, Roberto Lombardi, Manetti & Roberts S.p.a., Giovanni Masoni, Walter Mastrovito, Alessandro Marrucci, Franco Miccinesi, Fabrizio Musso, Andrea Nisbet, Daniele Orsi, Carlo Paoli, Patrizia Pisani, Domenico Pitimada, Luca Ruggeri, Silvia Salvati, Giuseppe Scali, Luciano Scali, Iuri Tamburini, Andrea Toniutti, Angelo Truglia, Marco Ulivieri, Damiano Urbani, Kime Italy S.p.a.

Authors of catalogue texts Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marco Bazzini, Valentino Catricalà, Laura Cherubini, Lara Conte, Rudi Fuchs, Lorenzo Giusti, Giovanni Iovane, Elena Magini, Helga Marsala, Gaspare Luigi Marcone, Arabella Natalini, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, Ludovico Pratesi, Italo Tomassoni, Andrea Viliani We also thank those who provided services in the various exhibition locations Ad Arte, Arterìa, Areco, Ars Movendi, Bagnoli, Bonaccorso, Capalbo, CAF, CWT, E20, F.lli Giani, Foltran, Fratini Gabriele, Lexis, L’Orologio, Machina, Manetti Battiloro, Open, Opera set, Piccini, Seven, Stand Studio This ambitious project would not have been possible without the generous support of Franca, Francesca, Lorenzo e Leonardo Pinzauti, Carlotta e Gianni Faggi, Alessandra e Enrico Gatti, Monica Sarti, Antonella e Giuliano Simonelli Our truly special thanks to the artists who shared this project with us, permitting us to exhibit their works in the various Ytalia locations, injecting the exhibition with their Energy, Thought, and Beauty

Florence

ISBN 978-88-99534-36-3

ENG

Forte di Belvedere Palazzo Vecchio Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture degli Uffizi Galleria Palatina Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Palazzo Pitti Giardino di Boboli Complesso Monumentale di Santa Croce Museo Marino Marini Museo Novecento