exhibition curated by Chiara Bertola and Fabio CafagnaIn collaboration with Fondazione Fausto MelottiWith the contribution of the Christian Stein Gallery and the support of Hauser & Wirth
In 1972 the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna in Turin celebrated the work of Fausto Melotti (Rovereto, 1901 - Milan, 1986) with a large retrospective that consecrated him as one of the masters of Italian art.
More than fifty years later, as part of SECONDA RISONANZA, the GAM is dedicating a new major exhibition to the artist, organised in collaboration with Fondazione Fausto Melotti in Milan, and curated by Chiara Bertola and Fabio Cafagna. The exhibition traces Melotti’s entire career from his abstract beginnings in the 1930s to his artistic maturity.
The title of the exhibition, Lasciatemi divertire! (‘Let me have fun!’), is inspired by an ironic statement made by the artist and emphasises the playful and experimental approach that characterised his work. The exhibition presents over 150 works from public and private collections and is centred around the large group of works conserved by GAM, including a large piece entitled Modulazione ascendente (1977), located in the museum garden.
THE EXHIBITIONThe exhibition is divided into eight sections, organised in chronological and thematic order in order to highlight Melotti’s expressive constants. The heart of the exhibition is a display, architecturally enclosed in the interior rooms of the tour, evoking the artist’s studios in Milan (via Leopardi) and Rome (via Margutta). These were spaces of intense creativity at different periods of his career.
The narratives of the other rooms are linked together, sometimes blending into one another. The exhibition itinerary covers the main themes of Melotti’s poetics: from Abstract Art of the first half of the 1930s to the urban and natural suggestions of Cities and Forests, passing through Cosmologies and ancient myths, up to Alphabets, testimony to the deep bond that links writing, drawing and sculpture in the artist’s poetics.
Two sections, titled Intervals and Counterpoints and Rain and Wind, gather works inspired respectively by music and natural rhythms, which are recurring elements in the artist’s production and which come to the fore in compositions of extreme lightness and suspension, Here, emptiness and silence play a central role. Finally, ample space is reserved for the Ceramic Production and for the Teatrini, small settings ‘inhabited’ by anthropomorphic figures that Melotti created from the mid-1940s onwards.
The exhibition extends beyond the exhibition rooms, involving the atrium, entrance hall and garden with large-format sculptures. A selection of documents and photographs is also on display in the GAM Library.
THE EXHIBITION LAYOUT The presentation of the works takes into account Melotti’s historical exhibitions, adopting display solutions he himself devised, such as the characteristic ‘I’ shaped pedestals. The sections dedicated to Ceramic Production and to the Teatrini (Little Theatres) offer the visitor the opportunity to experience the atmosphere of his Milanese and Roman studios at different times of his career.
The exhibition represents an opportunity to discover more about Fausto Melotti as multifaceted artist able to combine sculpture, painting, ceramics, writing and music, establishing himself as a leading exponent of twentieth-century Italian art.
