The exhibition, created by the Galleria Casoli De Luca in collaboration with Studio Geuna, reviews 20th century’s Italian art focusing on the second half of the century. It features a selection of works by internationally renowned Italian artists who employ or have employed gold in their artistic practice. It includes the master’s representations of sacred stories between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, which laid the foundations for the formation of a national identity, up to works of some of the most representative contemporary artists in Italian art history.
The exhibition is divided into three sections that interact with each other. The first, dedicated to the use of gold in Italian artistic research of the twentieth century, opens with a painting on gold paper by Giacomo Balla from 1913. It then develops into a journey including works from some of the major post World War II Italian artists such as Fausto Melotti, Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, Carla Accardi and Gastone Novelli. Also on display is a rare Achrome by Piero Manzoni, emblematic of the artist’s research between the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibition continues with a large group of works from the Arte Povera movement by artists such as: Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alighiero Boetti, Giulio Paolini, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Giuseppe Penone and others of the same generation. The section is completed by recent works by Maurizio Cattelan, Lara Favaretto, Chiara Fumai, Giovanni Rizzoli and an enamel painting on canvas by Rudolf Stingel.
The second section of the exhibition is enriched by some historical Italian masterpieces including paintings on a gold background such as the beautiful Madonna con Bambino (Madonna with child) by Familiare del Boccati from the second half of the fifteenth century and the imposing Corsi Crucifix from the first quarter of the fourteenth century. Finally, the last section is a special project dedicated to contemporary jewelry with creations from artists including Lucio Fontana, Enrico Castellani and Jannis Kounellis.