Eight works of the great Giacomo Balla (1871/1958) from Turin:
In the triptych oil on canvas Affections,
Balla portrays his wife Elisa and her daughter Luce in a moving intimate
glimpse
“Independent temperament, confident,
self-taught artist. Still very young, in 1893, came to settle in Rome, bringing
with him the memory of the haloed dense colors of Fontanesi, and the
pointillist palette of Previati and Pelizza da Volpedo, along with the romantic
and lyrical overtones of their social 'piety'. His education was completed in
Paris, where he spent some months in 1900, assimilating Lombard Pointillism
with something of the depth of light of Seurat, Signac and Cross, but also
receiving special realistic suggestions by the virtuosity and pathos of Eugène
Carrière. Back in Rome, he worked hard in his studio near Pincian Gate, then on
the outskirts of the city, isolated among the Villa Borghese gardens and the
nearby countryside, gathering around young artists anxious of modernity, such
as Boccioni and Severini, who obtained in that study, with the first lessons,
the first opening to a modern experimental methodology of color and light that
from the principles of Pointillism was to carry them to the dynamic
achievements of Futurism” (Maurizio Calvesi - Dizionario Biografico degli
Italiani Treccani)
Five sculptures and five reliefs by Giacomo Manzù (1908/91):
Relief “Deposition
with Soldier” 1942 with Longinus, the Roman soldier who pierced
Jesus with a spear, wearing a German helmet
Relief “Crucifixion”
1939/40
"Manzù had in
himself (...) a deep afflatus, an inspiration, which led him to consider the
divine presence in each creature afflicted and persecuted by the negative
forces that act upon the earth after the prerogatives of oppression. Of these
creatures Christ would become, in his representation, the highest example, as
himself a creature and subject to the same torments" (De Micheli – Catalogue
of the exhibit Bellezza Divina)
“The
work of art arises solely and only by a movement of love... The key to your
work is that from your inmost a fire should develop that invests the matter and
that cannot remain simply that, because under your hands it should sublimate in
spirit. The plastic conception should not be inspired by formal prejudice but
only by love” (Giacomo Manzù)
Seven paintings by the Sicilian Renato Guttuso (1911/87):
"Here is
visible the transition of the artist from the Realism still characterizing the
Seventies to a painting more disturbing and visionary, made up of dreamlike
suggestions and fantastic and allusive images, as in this case. The artist's
muse is at this time Marta Marzotto, who could perhaps be identified with the
tiger crossing the courtyard of the Palazzo del Grillo where Guttuso resided, in
an atmosphere shrouded in unreal twilight" (GNAM Website -
www.gnam.beniculturali.it)
“In the art of Guttuso one feels a
transformation in 1940 from the lyrical image to the concreteness of things,
even in landscapes and still lifes that exceed the limits of the filtering
poetry of Morandi. Guttuso's creativity becomes increasingly dramatic”
(Raffaele De Grada - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)
Thirteen extraordinary paintings by Giorgio de Chirico (1888/1978):
“Portrait of Mother” 1911
"Around the
end of the Sixties De Chirico went through a revival of some of his
metaphysical iconography of the decades 1910 and 1920. This production will be
defined later by Maurizio Calvesi 'New Metaphysics'. In this case, the knight is
on horseback, painted as a black silhouette with jagged contours, tortured and
dug by the painting of the artist who wraps him in a shadowy, dark environment,
denying him the plasticity of a body and thus giving a sense of unrest to the
representation" (GNAM Website - www.gnam.beniculturali.it)
"The original
version of The Disquieting Muses was made in 1918. This canvas is signed and
dated 1925, but the date has been extended to 1947. For the iconography of the
muses have been proposed several classical references: Ippodamia from the east
pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia (Olympia Museum) for the mannequin
standing and a statuette from Iraq dated to 2290-2255 BC, Gudea I (Paris, Musée
du Louvre), for the mannequin sitting" (GNAM Website -
www.gnam.beniculturali.it)
Eighteen conceptual works by Pino Pascali (1935/68)
Born in Bari, he moved to Rome when he was
20 and died in a motorcycle accident only 32 years old. In the short period of
his artistic career he took on different figurative activities, from set design
to graphic design and worked as well in the Italian TV advertising successful
program Carosello
“To the image of aggressive femininity that
was beginning to show up in advertising in those years refers Lips Close Up,
the close up of a female mouth that, thanks to the relief of the board, is
facing us in all its boldness” (Martina De Luca)
“Torso of a black woman”
1964-65
“Bale” 1967
"In this work
he goes so far as to question the very name of still life. In Group of
characters (or Characters for a Puppet Theater), referring to the language of
advertising and comic books, he created small sculptures self-propelled on
wheels driven by motors for toys that simulate fruit and other objects designed
to appear to the forefront of a wooden puppet theater in the course of happenings"
(GNAM Website - www.gnam.beniculturali.it)
“Basket” 1968
“The bow of Ulysses”
1968
“Plowed fields,
irrigation canals” 1967
“The cycle of 'fake sculptures' is essentially
divided into two groups: the first includes prehistoric animals (dinosaurs,
whales, dolphins, sharks, reptiles) while the other is inspired by pure and
uncontaminated nature: white cliffs, the sea, waterfalls, bamboo. In these
works the strongest component is the spectacular one but there are also surreal
elements visible in the ability to mix with skill and irony that always
accompanies the work of Pascali the gigantism of the big toys, the
monumentality of Romanesque white color reminiscent of Apulia, the comics of BC
that the artist loved to read” (From the website of the Fondazione Museo Pino
Pascali - www.museopinopascali.it)
RESTAURANT ARTS CAFÉ
Bronze
statues:
“Undine”
1898 by Giuseppe Renda
(1862/1939)
“The poetry of Amleto Cataldi, classically
inspired, was 'to give a plastic expression, which in addition to being a daily
warning to the spirit, would also be a rest and a visual recreation in harmony
and beauty ... For me, beauty is one and universal and it was realized by no
other than the Greeks ... I want the work to be appreciated not only in its
synthesis, but in every part... I want a hand or a foot of my statue to have
the power to resurrect it all completely in the imagination of an observer...'“
(Amleto Cataldi - Quote from Francesco Sessa's blog)
KOSUTH COURTYARD
“The iis quae ad speculum et in speculo”
2005 installation by the American Joseph Kosuth
(1945)
CENTRAL COURTYARD
Bronze sculpture “Man
Shot” 1954/55 by Marino Mazzacurati
(1907/69)
Marble sculpture “Enigma” 1919 by Attilio
Selva (1888/1970) from Trieste
“This sculpture gave Selva undisputed fame
when exposed in Rome in 1921. For the concluded and solid form of the woman,
who seems to anticipate Art Decò elements, including symbolist suggestions and
memories of Secession taste, the critics talk about a study of Egyptian and
Indian art, and that is why it is traditionally dated after the trip to Egypt
at the court of King Faad (1919) for whom the sculptor produces coins and two
portraits” (Giovanna Caterina de Feo)
EXPO 1 AND EXPO 2 AREAS
Large areas of the museum dedicated to
temporary exhibitions
