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Art and the Cities is my personal blog and RU-vid channel about art and travel. Or better than art trips. I'm not only talking about art history but also about travel, museums, galleries, art market, love stories, books, exhibitions and much more.
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Clelia
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Known as MAMbo, the Museum of Modern Art of Bologna is considered the Italian version of the Guggenheim in Bilbao and tells the art of the 1900s from the 1950s to today. For me it is a must every time I go back to the city and obviously I couldn't do without it this year too.
The MAMbo is a fairly young museum because it was founded as we know it today in 2007 but its collection is linked to the previous modern art gallery in the city, from which it was born. And above all, its rooms are often rearranged for major events in the city. Like this year for example for Artefiera 2020.
The thing I like most about when an art fair arrives in the city is the collective enthusiasm of museums and foundations. A thousand thousand exhibitions are organized and in every corner of the city for three or four days we only talk about contemporary art.
And when I travel to a fair I always like to book a couple of extra days to be able to visit the city and its museums as well. So let's visit the Mambo together today. When I went, admission was free for a few days at the fair, but it usually costs € 6 with reductions and free tickets on the first Sunday of the month or the last two hours before closing on Thursday.
The permanent collection focuses on the art of the second half of the twentieth century in Italy and is divided into thematic areas. The first is painting in Rome in the sixties and has as its protagonist the "Funerals of Togliatti" by Renato Guttuso. An event that shocked Italy in 1964 and which was recounted by Guttuso in a version five times larger than the initial project. Not only the story of the death of a political leader but also of a public figure who has been a point of reference for many. But there are also super interesting works by Giosetta Fioroni, Tano Festa and Renato Mambor.
Another section that I love is the one dedicated to Arte Povera and the movements that were born around 1968. Walking through these rooms is like exploring one of the most interesting periods of Italian art, full of conceptual works and installations.
For this reason, three of the unmissable works for me are all together in this area. The first is Alighiero Boetti's “I don't leave, I don't rest”. Boetti is one of the first artists to participate in the Arte Povera group, so much so that he will also create a manifesto for it but he is one of the first to move away from it in the early seventies.
Another work that struck me is Gilberto Zorio's Omaggio arbitrario a Brancusi (1987). An artist that I love very much, both for the choice of materials and for the themes addressed in his works. The materials used are often natural or linked to archaic elements: the stars, the light and above all the chemical reactions that I like to imagine almost magical.
Also among the works of poor art there is the Girasole by Mario Ceroli. His hallmark, wood, usually used to reproduce silhouettes of human beings in different positions, almost gives me the idea of disappearing. We understand that the work is made of wood but it hardly matters anymore. The abstract representation of the flower immediately makes it clear that there is a connection between art and nature, between man and nature.
The museum also houses the collection of works by Giorgio Morandi. Actually it is a museum within a museum.
I find the combination of his works in one of the final rooms of the itinerary with Tony Cragg's 1999 Eroded landscape brilliant. The Mambo is worth visiting for this work alone. It seems like stepping into Morandi's paintings in a sculpture version for a moment. A choice made by the curators that I have always found fantastic and I hope to find it in each of my visits to the museum.
But the work that struck me most for my fixation on the use of the word in works of art was It was me. Daniela Comani's diary. Wonderful! The work consists of a canvas print of all phrases in the first person describing actions on the occasion of particular events that occurred on a certain date in history.
The itinerary in the permanent collection ends with these rooms, but I suggest you always take a look at the temporary exhibitions organized by Mambo as well. Often these are super interesting exhibits like the one I found called AgainandAgainandAgain.
1 апр 2020
