Lugano, Malpensa, Sorrento, La Versiliana: these are the stages of an artistic journey that confirms the importance now assumed by the “external” activity of the gallery. In Lugano, until September, the exhibition of the works of Rinaldo Bigi continues, a selection of works, especially paintings and some small interior sculptures, already exhibited with great success in Pietrasanta. The works presented, magnificent testimonies of the mastery in the use of the most diverse techniques, drag the visitor into the depths of the dreamlike and ironic world that the master Rinaldo Bigi has always told through characters, objects, stories and fantastic environments. His papers and canvases executed in oil and pastels are conceived as a theater of shapes and colors and figures in play of fantastic apparitions. Bigi can today be said to participate, with his own identifiable voice, in the major trend of the modern tradition of painters / sculptors and, less represented, of sculptors / painters.
An exhibition of about 80 works by Alessandro Busci, painter and architect, who lives and works in Milan, continues until September at the Malpensa Space, at the Soglia Magica and the Vip Rooms. The artist investigates the potential of the exchange between western and eastern iconographic traditions and his production stands out for the strong value of the sign, pictorial and calligraphic, made on unconventional supports such as steel, copper and aluminum worked with acids and enamels or on the more traditional paper. He began exhibiting in 1996 at the 36th edition of the Suzzara Prize and his personal exhibitions have been set up in Milan, Rome, Brescia, Turin, London, Bordeaux, Madrid, Milan, Bilbao, San Francisco and Naples. The cycles of large-format works that tell the spaces of the contemporary city and those dedicated to airport spaces (Airports) are of great interest.
The start of a close collaboration with the Sorrento Foundation is also of great importance, which will see two important exhibitions take place between May and November, with works distributed in the foundation's headquarters, in Villa Fiorentino in Sorrento, and in the heart of the town itself.
The spouses Antonino Fiorentino and Lucia Cuomo, at the beginning of the Thirties of the last century, decided to build a villa for their home, where they could also receive some customers of their commercial activity - handkerchiefs with particular embroideries - now known in the world and for which they received the visit of customers of great prestige. Having purchased the area of approximately 10.000 square meters. in the heart of the historic center, they went to a type of building they had chosen while leafing through American magazines. They entrusted the task to Eng. Almerico Gargiulo and in 1935-36 the construction was completed. The villa - which could enjoy an area in front set up as a garden (with many rose plants) and the rear part (with the farmhouse inserted in the ancient walls) remained with citrus groves - was furnished with great taste and with a wealth of furniture of high antiques.
It begins with an exhibition of works by Matteo Pugliese who will exhibit his works at Villa Fiorentino until June, but will also offer six monumental works in the city center. With the arrival of Matteo Pugliese's works, the Sorrento Foundation continues the path started with the exhibitions of Aligi Sassu, Mimmo Paladino, Salvador Dalì, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Mario Sironi and Pablo Picasso. Among the works on display, the Extra Moenia series, figures who are seeking a painful rebirth through a struggle with a wall that imprisons them. Alongside, the army of the Guardians: weapons and armor, inspired by the most diverse cultures, become the metaphor of an inner security success. In these modern totems, everything is overwhelmed in favor of a solid and reassuring corporeality. The show continues with the Underwater series, represented by female figures floating in space in an exaggeration of lightness and freedom. Finally, the series of Scarabs, sacred symbols that keep the memories and the spirit of the distant life that is our childhood.
The exhibition-event of the Sorrento summer, anticipated by a pre-exhibition in a room of Villa Fiorentino, is therefore represented by the great exhibition, until the beginning of November, dedicated to the master of the twentieth century, Marc Chagall. His works are poems on canvas: the bright colors, the dreamlike and surreal subjects, the simple and genuine stroke leaves the viewer with a feeling of peace and serenity, pushing him to an immediate empathy with the author. But Chagall's life is complex, made up of lights and shadows, moments of boundless joy alternating with moments of immense pain. The removal from the homeland, the holocaust but above all the loss of his beloved wife Bella, the subject of some of his most famous works.
The great summer of Imago Art Gallery continues at Versiliana where the exhibition dedicated to Salvador Dalì lands. Figures, symbols and phobias that chase each other in all his endless artistic production that he has applied, throughout his life, to all areas of the figurative arts . Of great interest is the cycle that Salvador Dali, known above all for his surrealist paintings, especially the one with the soft clocks, created to illustrate Lewis Carroll's book a collection of illustrations for Alice in Wonderland is considered one of the most sought after works by Dali.
To complete the panorama of the gallery's summer activities, it is worth noting the participation in the Lucerne historic car show with a stand where works by Enrico Ghinato dedicated to the world of cars were presented, but also a new cycle of "showcases" on the streets of capitals of the world.
