London Grip Poetry Review – Heather Moulson
Carla Scarano appreciates the humour in a collection of poems from Heather Moulson drawing on the comic-book world of the 60s and 70s More →
Carla Scarano
Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams. Review by Carla Scarano.
Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams
Victoria and Albert Museum
Sainsbury Gallery
2 February – 14 July 2019
‘La couture, c’est aussi une forme de sculpture, car la toile garde la mémoire des formes’
Christian Dior
(couture is also a kind of sculpture because the fabric keeps the memory of forms)
Two hundred unique artistic creations by Christian Dior and his successors are featured at the V&A exhibition. It is the biggest show on the renowned French fashion house ever presented in Britain based on an exhibition of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. It opens with the famous ‘Bar Suit’ (Corolle line, spring/summer 1947) donated to the V&A in 1960 by House of Dior. It is a revolutionary outfit with a black rich silk skirt and an ivory jacket marked by a narrow waistline that enhances the hips and the bust valorising the curves of the female body and evoking the petals of a flower (corolle). The figure 8 is the shape that best describes the ‘New Look’ Dior created redefining the style of women’s fashion after the second world war.
Dior came from a wealthy family of manufacturers from Normandy and manifested artistic talent since his youth. His parents wanted him to be a diplomat but then supported his love for art and funded his project for an art gallery where he exhibited works by surrealist and cubist painters such as Picasso, Braques, Duchamp, Magritte, Dalí and Giacometti. Unfortunately, he had to sell his pictures after the financial crisis of 1929 and started to work for top Parisian fashion designers such as Robert Pignet and Lucien Lelong.
In 1946 he founded his own couture house, House of Dior, and had his first collection, New Look, in February 1947. The couture house started with eighty-five members of staff and three ateliers but in eight years it had twenty-eight ateliers and more than a thousand staff, and by 1955 it covered fifty per cent of the exports of French haute couture. In ten years Christian Dior launched twenty-two collections and opened retail outlets in the UK and in America.
The exhibition celebrates his artistic achievements and his success as a business man as well as his connections with Britain. He once said he even liked English food and created Princess Margaret’s ball gown for her 21st birthday using raffia embroidery and sequins made from straw giving the idea of gold decorations. The gown looks fabulous in its weightlessness and preciousness.
Some impressive sketches of his models highlight the rounded geometry of his figures, ‘silhouettes qui s’impose à l’imagination’ (figures that impose themselves to the imagination). His concept of a dress was similar to the principles of architecture. He constructed it like a sculpture according to the laws of proportion and in this way moulded the female body. He both expressed a new vision of a desirable woman, after the austerity of the war years, and his concept of how a dress should be constructed. According to him, a dress needs to be built like a piece of architecture and the line of the fabric, called grainline, is the secret of the cloth design. The fashion designer has to obey the grainline of the fabric and make a dress that looks weightless. It is an idealisation that makes his clothes look like pieces of art.
It is no wonder that he was the favourite stylist of film stars such as Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Liz Taylor and Marlene Dietrich, for whom he designed the whole wardrobe of Hitchcock’s film Stage Fright.
The exhibition displays the different stages of his career from the launching of New Look in 1947, to the lines of 1950-1953, which reveal less marked shapes, and the renovated style of the late 1950s where the waistline almost disappears in the Ligne H dresses looking like the fashion of the 1920s.
Some outfits stand out such as ‘Maxim’s Ensemble’ (En 8, spring/summer 1947), a black dress with tight waistline enhancing the bust and the hips, or ‘Ulysse Coat’ (autumn/winter 1952), a red coat loosely enwrapping the figure. The ‘Sonnet Dress’ (Profilée line, autumn/winter 1952) and ‘Blandine Dress’ (Libre line, spring/summer 1957) are apparently simple outfits but show strong lines that define and idealise the body like in Greek sculptures.
The following section of the exhibition displays the creations of his successors: Yves Saint Laurent, who was only twenty-one when he took the lead of the couture house when Dior died in 1957, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and now Maria Grazia Chiuri. The outfits are inspired by 18th century dresses of the king’s court at Versailles and also by mid and late 19th century dresses. Their precious fabrics are richly decorated showing exaggerated and exclusive interpretations of examples from the past, as in the jacket by Ferré (spring/summer 1993) or in the ‘Look 24 Dress’ by Galliano (autumn/winter 2004).
Dior and his successors were also inspired by travels in their creations, both in textiles and models. The exhibition features outfits from five countries: Mexico, Japan, Egypt, China and India. Once again, the richness of the fabric and the embroideries combines with the line of the dresses giving a distinctive shape.
The last section is titled ‘Garden’, a reminiscence of the garden belonging to Dior’s mother in the family house at Granville, now Christian Dior Museum, and of the fashion designer’s passion for flowers. The ‘Jardin Fleuri Dress’ by Maria Grazia Chiuri (spring/summer 2017) has petal-like hand died decorations throughout the gown giving the impression of a spring flower bed. Flowers also inspired his love for perfumes that, according to Dior, were the ‘finishing touch of a dress’. His first perfume, Miss Dior, was created in 1947 in honour of his sister Catherine Dior, in an elegant bottle inspired by ancient amphorae.
The exhibition amply testifies Dior’s career and his exclusive creations that revolutionised women’s fashion after the second world war and continued to inspire his successors in a legacy that encompasses boundless creativity, craftsmanship and business.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
Vindication
Carla Scarano considers an anthology by six distinguished women poets More →
Three free exhibitions at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. Review by Carla Scarano.
Three free exhibitions at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford.
Antinous: boy made god. Until 24 Feb 2019, Gallery 8
Lui Shou-kwan Centenary Exhibition: Abstraction, Ink and Enlightenment. Until 7 April, Gallery 11
Plum Blossom and Green Willow: Surimono Poetry Prints. Until 17 May 2019, Gallery 29
Sometimes free exhibitions are as interesting as ones you pay for. This is the case of three free exhibitions displayed in three different rooms at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford. Though each exhibition is presented in only one room, they all show enough objects or pictures with effective explanatory captions that allow the viewer to successfully understand the subject.
Antinous: boy made god in Gallery 8, focuses on the figure of the handsome young man from Bithynia (present Turkey) who was the beloved lover of the emperor Hadrian from AD 123 till the boy’s death in 130. He drowned in the Nile, and there are no records to ascertain if it was an accident, suicide, or if he was killed. Possibly it was a self-sacrifice in favour of the emperor. Antinous did not hold any official or public position and was not a Roman citizen. However, his cult spread throughout the empire; he was represented in statues, busts, coins, bronze statuettes, and was celebrated in poems, hymns and festivals.
The exhibition displays several marble statues such as the beautiful ‘Antinous from Syria’, a naked bust with an inscription, ‘To the Hero Antinous’. The ‘Townley Antinous’, a head that was part of a statue, wears a wreath of ivy reminiscent of the figure of Dyonisus. His face looks down, in a modest pose as in the life-size statue of the ‘Capitoline Antinous’. This modesty represented the attitude the elders expected from a well-educated youth, similar to the ‘Venus pudica’ (modest Venus). The hairstyle, curls at the front and long hair at the back, is reminiscent of figures of heroes such as Achilles. However, there are no records of heroic acts or other particular events he performed, except the fact that he was Hadrian’s lover. He represented homoerotic attraction, which was subsequently repressed under Christianity, and had followers in local and popular worship. This widespread and enduring veneration is considered unusual by experts and though Hadrian founded a city in his honour, Antinopolis, and supported his cult, it does not seem enough to justify it. The most feasible explanation about this success is that he probably answered a need in society. The worshippers identified themselves in this country boy who became a hero and a god for them, and his life was exemplar. The exhibition also displays plaster casts and a statue of Antinous as Osiris, found at Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli in Italy. This representation as the Egyptian god of the underworld testifies the versatility and popularity of his cult.
A very different and equally engrossing exhibition is in Gallery 11. It is dedicated to the Chinese painter Lui Shou-Kwan (1919-1975), who lived in the mainland China and in Hong Kong working for a Ferry Company and teaching art. In his work he developed spiritual themes connected with Buddhism and Confucianism expressed in his landscapes and abstract paintings. His apparently loose, though carefully controlled, use of black ink in thin lines as well as in large patches reveals a traditional approach that records the physical object or landscape but aims to a spiritual connection. This is very clear in his Chan paintings (Chan meaning ‘Zen’ in Japanese) where large brushstrokes in black ink are juxtaposed to small yellow or red marks, probably linked to the symbols of colours in Buddhism where red is traditionally associate to life and virtue and yellow to renunciation and emptiness. They might allude to Zen practices focusing on meditation, a point in time and space to contemplate. The lotus pictures symbolise the openness of this practice to the world and to others, while the landscapes show the dreamlike quality of the land in its expanding, almost boundless reality, that seems to reach beyond the page. The abstract paintings are fascinating in their simplicity and yet highly evocative of a possible different dimension. The centenary exhibition dedicated to this remarkable painter displays a riveting selection of his works; this gives the viewer a deep and vivid awareness of the interests and development of his art.
In Gallery 29 the Surimono prints’ display from the Ashmolean’s collections offer an interesting view of Japanese poetry, custom and art of the early 19th century. The Surimono, meaning ‘printed thing or object’, is a woodblock print of about eight by nine inches commissioned for special occasions such as New Year greetings, the Cherry Blossom season or other particular events. They wish good luck combining images and poetry with pictures linked to nature, historical events, symbols or still life. They often illustrated a particular poem that won a competition or publicised Kabuki actors and did not have a commercial distribution but were privately published and privately owned. The text was paramount and was the main inspiration for the illustration which interpreted and added layers of meaning to the poem.
The exhibition, though displayed in a small room, offers a good range of examples from Kabuki actors, historical figures, symbolism linked to Buddhism, iconic characters of literature and legends, and festivities. The exquisite elegance of the pictures and their connection with the importance of harmony in life, convey a spiritual influence that, according to Japanese tradition, was present in the words of the poems.
The three exhibitions, though limited to one room, give a vivid and extensive view of the themes they address. The viewer cannot be but fascinated by their original finesse, vision and artistry.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
Balla: Villa Borghese. Review by Carla Scarano.
Balla: Villa Borghese
Museo Carlo Bilotti
Aranciera (Orangery) di Villa Borghese
Rome
29/11/2018 – 17/02/2019
‘Ho lavorato molto cercando sempre di ritrarre il vero ed attraverso ad esso l’intimo spirito delle cose’
Giacomo Balla
(I have always worked a lot trying to portray the truth and through it the intimate spirit of things)
The Museum Carlo Bilotti is located in the elegant edifice of the Orangery in the park of Villa Borghese. It is one of the many and interesting museums of the Municipality of Rome scattered around the capital, and is free of charge. It is hosting an engrossing exhibition of the first period of Giacomo Balla, a painter and sculptor whose works developed in the first half of 20th century going from realism to abstract art; he was also a major representative of Futurism, an avant-garde movement. Balla lived near the park in 1904 in a large apartment in via Paisiello in the chic district of Parioli. He depicted the trees and landscapes of Villa Borghese from the balcony of his study or immersed in the green just outside his house.
Villa Borghese is in the heart of the city stretching from Pincian Hill facing piazza del Popolo to Parioli for eighty hectares. Besides strolling in the beautiful park, visitors can admire the Lake Garden, various temples and fountains, piazza di Siena, venue of the renowned international horse show, look at the Water Clock and at a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, as well as visiting the Borghese Museum and Gallery and the Rome zoo (Bioparco). The Orangery is another interesting place to see. The edifice was deeply altered throughout the centuries. Its original structure dates back to the 16th century but was completely refurbished in the late 18th century by Marcantonio IV Borghese in a new project that involved the area of the Lake Garden where the Orangery was a place of leisure. The building was severely damaged during the battles of 1849, when the Roman Republic fell under the pressure of the French army. It was acquired by the Municipality of Rome in 1903 together with the rest of the park.
Museum Carlo Bilotti is an important example of collaboration between public and private enterprises. It is a meeting place of art and culture situated in the centre of Villa Borghese thanks to the donations of Carlo Bilotti, an Italian-American entrepreneur who worked in the field of cosmetics. He was a collector who opened his collection of renowned art works to the public both in Rome and in Cosenza (his home town), donating twenty-two works to the museum. They are paintings, sculptures and drawings mainly by Giorgio de Chirico, but there are also works by Larry Rivers, Andy Warhol, Gino Severini and Giacomo Manzú. Unfortunately, the room dedicated to de Chirico is temporarily closed due to repairing works. The areas dedicated to temporary exhibitions are a large part of the museum both at the ground floor and at the first floor.
In a room by the entrance, a video clip introduces Balla’s art and career from his beginnings as a student at the Royal Albertine Academy in Turin to the time he spent in Paris and his arrival in Rome where his fame soared. At first he became famous for his portraits, where he applied the techniques of light and shadow from photography. Among his students there were Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini who introduced Balla to Futurism. He signed the Manifesto of Futurism in 1910 moving to an abstract pictorial style that conveyed sensations through colours and geometrical shapes. The study of movement and speed was paramount in this period. Even his daughters’ names, Luce (light), and Elica (propeller), were inspired by this avant-garde movement. Futurism meant to destroy the past and rebuild a new future in a constant change and regeneration. It relied in slogans such as ‘we will free Italy from her innumerable museums which cover her like countless cemeteries’, or ‘a racing motor car is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace’. In politics Balla was a socialist, opposed the establishment and was involved in the literacy campaign together with Duilio Cambellotti. They meant to improve literacy in the countryside around Rome, the Agro Pontino, where there was a high percentage of illiterate peasants and very poor conditions due to the Pontine marshes and the spreading of malaria. At the end of his career, Balla embraced a more realist, figurative style again.
The exhibition displays enthralling pictures, mainly pastels, of views, trees, fountains, alleys and sculptures of Villa Borghese. The artist explored the park over and over again, simplifying the forms and modifying the colours. For Balla, Villa Borghese was like the mount of Sainte-Victoire for Cézanne, a great source of inspiration, that allowed him to investigate reality to the point of an abstract research of purity. The core of his art remained the study of light and movement throughout his career.
A few portraits on display testify his skilful use of chiaroscuro merging the lesson of the masters, such as Caravaggio, and the new techniques of photography he learned in Paris. The influence of Impressionism and Divisionism, characterized by the separation of colours in spots, are also present in some of the works, such as ‘Germogli Primaverili’ (spring buds), ‘Villa Borghese dal Balcone’ (Villa Borghese from the balcony) or the pictures of trees. They emphasise the attentive study of shades that create dynamism and movement. A nocturnal study of ‘Le Torri del Museo Borghese’ (the towers of Borghese museum) reveals a modern interpretation of light and shadow reminiscent of van Gogh’s lesson. A research of simplified forms almost to the abstraction is in ‘Fontana’ (fountain) and ‘Cantano i Tronchi’ (the trunks sing), where the lines evoke the shapes in deep contrasts with the background. Some landscapes depicting the suburbs of Rome are also on display showing how Balla was a complete artist, mastering portraits, landscapes, close up details as well as sculptures. ‘Linea di velocità + forma rumore’ (1913-1914, 1933) is the only futuristic work of the exhibition. It is an installation in chromed brass showing in its sharp angles and convoluted curves the vibrant quality he attained in his investigation of movement and speed.
This is a compelling exhibition that successfully presents some of Balla’s less known yet fascinating pieces centred on the theme of Villa Borghese in the enchanting atmosphere of the Orangery, immersed in one of the most beautiful parks of Rome.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
Ovid. Love, myths and other stories. Review by Carla Scarano.
Ovid. Love, myths and other stories.
Scuderie del Quirinale.
Rome.
17 October 2018 – 20 January 2019.
An enthralling survey of ancient myths is the central idea of Ovid’s exhibition at Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome. Ovid interpreted and sometimes created the tradition of classical mythology in his most famous poem, Metamorphoses. He was an aristocrat and an intellectual who clashed with emperor Augustus’ moral reforms. For this reason, Augustus exiled him to Tomis, a remote town on the Black Sea, where the poet died ten years later.
Ovid’s free thinking and open criticism to a moral interpretation of myths is clearly pointed out in the exhibition and well explained in the captions. Starting from the first room, the viewer is well aware of the paramount importance of Ovid’s works both in the past and today. From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, his books were copied by hand then published in printed editions spreading throughout Europe. Ovid’s words are still meaningful today in the installation in coloured neon, ‘Maxima Proposito (Ovid)’ (2017) by the American artist Joseph Kosuth. It is a selection of writings in English and Latin from Metamorphoses testifying the still relevant and inspirational quality of the myths.
Love is central to Ovid’s oeuvre in all its forms: eroticism, seduction, passion as well as how to discipline desire. His libertine vision was in contrast with Augustus and his wife Livia’s reforms that meant to renew pax deorum (divine harmony) and devotion to the gods, aiming to give stability to the Roman empire. Ovid clashes with this view mocking the gods as frivolous, malicious, ruthless in their revenge and insatiable in love.
The examples are numberless and well explained throughout the exhibition with engrossing works of art, mainly sculptures from the Roman period but also pictures by Botticelli, Tintoretto, Domenichino, Saraceni and Poussin, and thought-provoking descriptions. The ambiguous and falsely chaste image of Venus Pudica (modest Venus), covering her private parts, is revealed in the illicit love affair of Venus and Mars. Another example is in the slaughter of the Niobids, a ferocious massacre of young innocents by the hands of Apollo and Diana. The goddess shows her vengefulness and cruelty in the story of Actaeon as well, who sees her naked by chance and is transformed into a stag then devoured by his own hounds. In a similar way, the satyr Marsyas, who dared challenge Apollo in a music contest, loses and is flayed alive as punishment.
The best example of Ovid’s exposure of the gods’ eccentricities and his criticism of Augustus’ policy, is expressed in the way he narrates Jupiter’s affairs, revealing the lack of morality of the lord of heavens and protector of Rome. Ovid’s Jupiter is a seducer, an insatiable lover, using any means in order to fulfil his desires. His victims are defenceless girls, young men and honest married women he conquers using trickeries and disguises. He transforms into a swan to rape Leda, a white bull to abduct Europa, an eagle to kidnap Ganymede, and golden rain to conquer Danaë. The gods worshipped by Augustus are not impeccable examples of morality, on the contrary, they are capricious and subjected by their passions and whims, eventually cruel to the extreme. Ovid’s undermining of the reputation of the gods brought Augustus to exile him.
The exhibition continues on to the second floor focusing on stories of love, rape and abandonment such as the myths of Ariadne, Proserpina and Ganymede. Love is an obsession, so powerful that it cannot be controlled. It triggers action and eventually transforms the victim in a goddess or dooms her forever. Women are usually powerless in the face of the authority of the gods. They are forced to submit both to rape and to transformation or to invoke transformation to avoid rape as in Apollo and Daphne’s story.
The most tragic story is the myth of Narcissus, where Echo, who is desperately in love with him, consumes herself to the point of being reduced to her voice. Narcissus rejects whoever is in love with him and finally loses his head for his own image reflected in water. As Tiresias predicted ‘so long as he never knows himself’ he will live. This is an ambiguous prophesy that implies the dangers of egocentrism. The only character who seems to thrive after his abduction, rape and abandonment is Ganymede. He is not punished or transformed but ‘promoted’ to the role of cup-bearer of the gods.
At the end of Metamorphoses, Ovid envisages his future everlasting fame. His works will be used by great writers such as Francis Bacon, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Joyce, T.S Eliot and Bob Dylan. The poet’s emphasis on change, a constant becoming of all the forms and aspects of the universe, reflects our modern vision of life. This lack of stability, that Ovid took from the philosopher Heraclitus, stresses the proximity of all the forms: humans, gods, animals, plants and minerals. There is a reciprocal influence and a constant tension between the different natures where new shapes keep what is possible of the old ones, which are never completely effaced in the transformation, as Calvino claims in his essay ‘Ovidio e la contiguità universale’ (Ovid and the universal proximity). Eventually, it is not a total change but a process. For the preservation of the species, survival is fundamental: ‘everything changes, nothing dies, the everything flows, and every image is transformed in movement’.
The exhibition shows in an effective, stimulating way how Ovid’s works influenced our culture and storytelling from ancient time until today, thanks to a vision centred on the constant becoming of being human. It entails transformation but also continuity and encompasses all forms present in nature. Interesting descriptions and significant works of art complete the display giving a thorough perspective to the viewer.
Carla Scarano © 2019.
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Yayoi Kusama: The moving moment when I went to the universe. Review by Carla Scarano.
Yayoi Kusama: The moving moment when I went to the universe
Victoria Miro Art Gallery
16 Wharf road, London
3 October – 21 December 2018
A daring exhibition of Yayoi Kusama’s work at Victoria Miro Art Gallery. The title itself plays on the double meaning of the word ‘moving’ evoking emotions and the movement of her repeated polka-dots that dance in the eyes of the viewer producing unsuspected depths and continuous motion on the apparently flat surfaces.
The exhibition develops in four sections. On the first floor of the gallery the visitors are allowed about a minute entry into the Infinity Mirrored Room. It is a mesmerizing experience of multiplied spherical paper lanterns with polka-dot patterns in a mirrored dark room. The lights shift colours from green to red, yellow, deep blue and bright pink communicating an overwhelming and reassuringly pleasant effect in the infinite repetition of the same motifs in a controlled space. As the title remarks, the artist’s (and the viewer’s) heart can dance, or play, in an illusion of infinity inside an enclosed space wishing to go beyond the limited vision.
At the ground floor of the gallery, Kusama’s pumpkins are displayed in paintings and in the painted bronze sculpture versions. They are in three colours: green, yellow and red, with black dots. Other paintings in the same room reveal a closer attention to the details of the dots, reflecting motion and evolution. As Kusama said, pumpkins speak to her about ‘the joy of living. They are humble and amusing at the same time’, they are ‘humorous’ and have a ‘human-like quality’. However, her pumpkins do not look like ‘real’ pumpkins we find in nature, not only in the colour but also in the shape. They look perfect, an image of a pumpkin, an example that becomes ‘The Pumpkin’ for the viewer.
The polka-dot patterns repeat endlessly in a reassuring rhythm controlling and limiting the space and giving, at the same time, the illusion of infinity revealing a highly crafted painting technique. They give a sense of suspension (dot, dot, dot…), a controlled suspension (but controlled to what extend?), which seems to be her core message.
The abstract entities evoked in the titles of some of her works (e.g., eternal soul, the heart dancing into the universe, I want to go to heaven) reveal unidentified places open to infinity and yet controlled by the artist in the accumulation and repetition of the same shapes. The viewer cannot be but fascinated by the illusion created and mastered by her art, the depth and movement of dots’ paths on her creations.
Among the visitors, there were families with children who were flabbergasted by the ludic quality of Kusama’s work, reminiscent of theme parks and playgrounds. But there is much more in her work for an adult eye, with her constant allusion to the tension between the finite quality of being humans and their infinite aspirations.
Kusama had a traumatic childhood; she studied painting in Kyoto and moved to the US in the late 1950s until the early 1970s, when she moved back to Japan. She is not only a visual artist, she is also a writer and produces performances, happenings and installations. In 1977 she chose to live in a psychiatric hospital and admitted that ‘if it were not for art, I would have killed myself’. She has reported to feel her soul separated from the body and to have hallucinations that she recreated afterwards visually in her paintings in an attempt to decipher and control them. In spite of her old age, eighty-nine, which does not seem to weaken her creativity and skill, she is extremely prolific; in fact, she is one of the world’s number one female artists. Her work has been described as a crossing between surrealism, minimalism, pop art and abstract expressionism. It certainly appeals to the public and has a primordial quality, translating her obsessions, which reflect the viewer’s obsessions, in an accessible language through self-assuring repetitions. She claimed that in her ‘nets’ of repeated patterns she meant to expand beyond herself in a self-obliterating process that allows her to access an imaginary unrestricted reality. What appeals the audience is also the sense of extreme freedom her work communicates, certainly a controlled kind of freedom but still beyond ordinary boundaries. In some way it reflects our free but surveilled society.
The exhibition continues into the beautiful gallery’s waterside garden, with the sculptures of the ‘Flowers that speak all about my heart given to the sky’. Nature and artifice merge in the constructed Arcadian scenery in the shadow of the cement and glass building of the gallery. A perfect match.
The last part of Kusama’s display, ‘My Eternal Soul Paintings’, is in Gallery II, third floor. They have a different philosophical and pictorial approach, large canvases with intriguing titles such as ‘A Corner of the Sky’, Beauty of Death’, ‘I Want to Eat the Sun’, or ‘Beyond the Heaven’. Large portions of bright colours and archetypical figures prevail on repeated patterns. Some of them look like primordial masks (‘Garden of Women in Blooming Youth’, ‘Let’s Stop the War’), others resemble organic elements (‘I spoke all about Peace’, ‘Hymn to Life’). The striking freedom of these works skilfully catches the eye of the viewers involving them in Kusama’s fantastical experience in an illusion of infinity where everything is possible, provided that it is also under control. Her work and her life shift between depersonalization and a solid grip to reality in a man’s world where she is leaving her indelible mark masterfully dottying around.
Carla Scarano © 2018.
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Duilio Cambellotti, Myth, Dream and reality. Review by Carla Scarano.
Duilio Cambellotti. Mito, sogno e realtà
Duilio Cambellotti, Myth, Dream and reality
Musei di Villa Torlonia, Villa Torlonia museums
Casino dei Principi, Casino Nobile, Casino delle Civette
House of Princes, Noble House, House of Owls
Rome
http://www.museivillatorlonia.it/en/casina_delle_civette/artisti/duilio_cambellotti
06/06 – 11/11/2018
The beautiful park and the edifices of Villa Torlonia in via Nomentana in Rome is an unmissable place in the tour of the capital. It is not far from the centre and it is easily reachable by bus from Stazione Termini (the central railway station of Rome).
The Villa belonged to powerful Roman families, first to the Pamphili then to the Colonna and finally to the Torlonia. It has interesting buildings which were designed and restored by the architect Giuseppe Valadier in the nineteen century. He gave them an elegant, classical outline and reorganized the garden with paths and fountains. The most important parts to visit are: Casino dei Principi (House of Princes) with its temporary exhibitions, Casino Nobile (Noble House) with the museum, and Casina delle Civette (House of Owls). There are also Old and New Stables, Jewish catacombs, the Lemon House, the Medieval House and the Red House. In 1925 Mussolini lived there with his family until 1943.
The Casino Nobile is beautifully restored with interesting frescoes and remarkable stuccos, especially on the ground floor. Going upstairs there is an elegant detail: the plaster patterns on the ceilings mirror the patterns of the marble floor. On the first and second floors there is a collection of paintings of Scuola Romana (Roman school), one of the most important artistic movements of Italian art in the period between the two world wars. The painters of the Roman School were different one from the other but had some common characteristics, they all worked in Rome and had profound links with the city, were dedicated to blending great painting skills, believed in the experimentation of new approaches, and opposed Fascism. Among them there are renowned artists, such as Renato Guttuso, Mario Mafai, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Fausto Pirandello, Antonio Donghi, Giulio Turcato and Alberto Burri. Their work is referred as ‘Realismo Magico’ (magical realism); they chose intimate, homely subjects and hidden corners for their pictures in opposition to the rhetoric of the regime. They also expressed the anxiety of the modern world depicting places of the city demolished by Mussolini’s urban project.
Casino dei Principi hosts an exhibition of Duilio Cambellotti, featuring about two hundred works that delineate the artist’s eclectic career which was influenced by the ideas of William Morris and the Scottish design of the School of Glasgow. It is an anthological exhibition that displays examples of the artist’s versatile work as an illustrator of books and magazines, creator of posters for events and advertisements, sculptor, ceramist, furniture, jewellery and carpet designer, textile artist, printmaker and stained glass artist. He also designed scenes for the Greek theatre of Syracuse, and other classical theatres in Italy such as Taormina, Ostia Antica and Paestum, as well as the costumes of the plays. His style is connected to Art Nouveau but he had a strong political and social commitment as well. He resisted the perfect industrial product and believed that the artist was a craftsman close to the art of the people that, for him, in the mainly rural Italian environment of the time, were the peasants of the Roman countryside, the Agro Pontino. His source of inspiration was people’s work, their legends and myths, the buffaloes of the Agro Pontino and the tools the peasants used to labour the land. This is clear in some of the works on display such as ‘Conca dei Bufali’ (1910), a bronze large bowl with buffaloes, or in the sculpture ‘Le vacche aratrici’ (1924-25) where the busts of the cows are the central piece. They are pieces that evoke a mythical agrarian world considered morally important and aesthetically attractive in opposition to the industrialization that was advancing in Italy, though slowly compared to other European countries.
Cambellotti denied the hierarchy of arts, a concept which is clearly showed in the exhibition explaining his tendency to mix and experiment in different techniques, following the Wagnerian idea of ‘total art’ (Gesamtkunstwerk), ranging from paintings to the graphics of posters and advertisements, stained glasses, furniture and even toys. He also took part in an important social project, the ‘Scuola del Popolo’, People’s School, that meant to bring education to the illiterate peasants of the Roman countryside. He designed posters to advertise this project, decorated schools and illustrated the books with the letters of the alphabet making drawings to simplify learning through images. In this way he combined his social commitment with his work for companies, and for public, civil and ecclesiastical patrons. He illustrated the Florets of St. Francis of Assisi, produced stained glasses with religious themes and realized private house furnishing and interior spaces for exhibitions. He worked for the magazine ‘La Casa’, the House, and took part in Monza’s famous International Exhibition dedicated to decorative arts in 1923 and in 1925.
The exhibition illustrates every step of this engrossing, unconventional career in different sections with significative examples of his major works starting from the posters he produced for the theatrical performances he contributed to as set and costume designer as well, to the advertisement for the Fiat Balilla, ‘La Balilla dell’Impero’, the Balilla of the empire (1937), to interior and furnishing designs, stained glasses, also present in the window decorations of Casina delle Civette, ceramics, textiles inspired by Middle East art and projects for monuments. His style looks for a synthesis, a harmony that combines his ethical commitment and the aesthetic message where the role of the artist is in unifying craftsmanship and the themes and symbols of labour linked to the agrarian archetypical Italian heritage.
More works by Cambellotti are in Casina delle Civette, both in stained glass and furniture. This is a unique building which was originally a Swiss cabin, or rustic chalet. The prince Giovanni Torlonia liked to live there so much that he transformed it, adding annexes and altering parts. The final result is complex, multi-faceted, incredibly attractive and mysterious. From outside it looks like a mixture of medieval, rustic, Renaissance and vaguely northern style. Inside it there is a special charm in its narrow corridors, wooden stairs and floors and variably sized rooms, all decorated with superb glass windows. The emblem of the owl is recurrent, probably hinting to Giovanni Torlonia’s passion for esoterism. There are owls on stained glasses realized by Cambellotti, but also on capitols, stuccos and tiles. The place is so intimate, elegant and fascinating that it is said the prince preferred this small house to his rich palaces. On the front door is his motto: Wisdom and Solitude.
It took four years to refurbish the Casina delle Civette after it was completely abandoned for more than forty years, but now it’s worth visiting as well as the rest of Villa Torlonia both for the beauty and peaceful environment, and for the riveting exhibitions displayed in its elegant buildings.
Carla Scarano © 2018.
London Grip Poetry Review – Steve Rudd
March 19, 2019 by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, year 2019 • Tags: books, Carla Scarano, poetry • 0 Comments
Carla Scarano reviews a serious and uncompromising new collection from Steve Rudd More →