Magic Realism. An Italian style

When: October 19, 2021 - February 27, 2022
this event is ended

Place: Palazzo Reale di Milano
Region: Lombardia

Painting of the 20th century Art Exhibitions in Milano

Allestimento mostra Realismo Magico - Carlotta Coppo

“Realistic precision of contours, solidity of matter well placed on the ground; and around it like an atmosphere of magic that makes you feel, through an intense anxiety, almost another dimension in which our life is projected ... "
(Massimo Bontempelli, 1928)

Thus, in 1928, the writer, journalist and playwright Massimo Bontempelli summarizes the character of a specific declination of Italian art between the two world wars.
An expressive modality that, purified from the tensions of futurism and expressionism, works on a new rendering of the image that presents itself to the observer as' icy, clear, often investigated in the smallest details, so realistic that it inevitably turns out to be disturbing and alienating '(G. Belli and V. Terraroli).
It was a phenomenon of transnational significance which, with critical acuity and intelligent intuition, the Munich art critic Franz Roh, in one of his famous essays dedicated to contemporary German painting and published in 1925, defined Magical Realism.

Magic Realism, in its simplicity, is also the title of the exhibition scheduled at Palazzo Reale in Milan from 19 October 2021 to 27 February 2022, curated by Gabriella Belli and Valerio Terraroli.

Promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan-Cultura, Palazzo Reale and 24 ORE Cultura-Gruppo 24 ORE, this is an exhibition project that aims - according to a precise philological and historiographic reconstruction of the phenomenon of Magic Realism - to make the visitor discover more than eighty masterpieces of this complex and fascinating artistic current, with an installation curated by Studio Mario Bellini with Raffaele Cipolletta.

A new look at the Movement, a new interpretation that, thirty years after the last Milanese exhibition on the subject curated by Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco in 1986, Palazzo Reale once again offers the public a unique opportunity to focus on a historical-artistic period - the one between the two wars - which has suffered a damnatio memoriae for a long time, but which in recent years has first been the subject of a gradual rediscovery through monographic studies on individual artists who have managed to keep it alive. interest and now the subject of a real trend of enhancement which culminates, after thirty years of uninterrupted studies, in this ensemble exhibition on Magic Realism.... read the rest of the article»

In particular, and for the foresight of a great gallery owner and art critic, Emilio Bertonati (1934-1981), to whom the exhibition intends to pay homage and adequate recognition, for his intuition and critical intelligence that was created in an emblematic private collection of masterpieces of Magical Realism, which this exhibition highlights in a particular way, presenting it in its entirety for the first time to the Milanese public together with other works from important collections and museums.

The chronological-philological path revolves around Italian masterpieces of this specific climate, in turn related to some works of the Neue Sachlickheit, the so-called German "New Objectivity", which Emilio Bertonati was the first to promote and made known to Italian culture at the beginning of the Sixties through the Galleria del Levante, in the Milan and Munich offices. The comparisons will also be with the characters of the Italian twentieth century by Margherita Sarfatti, from which Magic Realism stands out, but with whom it shares some artistic personalities such as Achille Funi, Mario Sironi, Ubaldo Oppi.

The exhibition is dedicated to Elena Marco, a cultured and passionate journalist, a wise and far-sighted collector, who shared the exhibition project and has always supported it.