Lugano
Curated by Andrea Bellini and Francesco Stocchi, the exhibition offers a broad and multidisciplinary reinterpretation of Italian cultural output from the post-war period to the present day through the works of over 130 artists.
The exhibition brings together over 300 works to explore the ironic element that runs through Italian culture – what the philosopher Giorgio Agamben described as a ‘stubborn anti-tragic intention’ (Categorie italiane, 1996). More than a mere attitude, it is a genuine national sensibility that finds its first and highest reference in Dante’s Divine Comedy: in the revolutionary approach of tackling the most complex themes through a register linked to everyday life, intertwining ‘high’ culture with popular culture.
The time span extends over eighty years, from the post-war period to the present day, focusing on artists who have made this tension between the tragic and the comic the centre of their poetics and their view of the world. The works engage in dialogue with one another, in a continuous and unprecedented comparison between iconic pieces and others that have received less attention. Among the artists featured in the exhibition: Gianfranco Baruchello, Elena Bellantoni, Mirella Bentivoglio, Tomaso Binga, Alighiero Boetti, Monica Bonvicini, Maurizio Cattelan, Adelaide Cioni, Roberto Cuoghi, Gino De Dominicis, Luciano Fabro, Lucio Fontana, Chiara Fumai, Silvia Giambrone, Nicole Gravier, Piero Golia, Piero Manzoni, Liliana Moro, Valerio Nicolai, Paola Pivi, Giuseppe Penone, Carol Rama, Lorenzo Scotto Di Luzio and Gilberto Zorio.
Repetto Gallery is pleased to participate in this important institutional exhibition with the loan of works by Mirella Bentivoglio.