Venice, Bank of Italy holds exhibition featuring works from its collection

From Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022 to Jan. 8, 2023, on the occasion of the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale, the Bank of Italy is hosting in the representative rooms of the Venice Headquarters in Palazzo Dolfin Manin on the Grand Canal the exhibition Homage to Venice. Works from the Collection of the Bank of Italy.

The initiative aims to acquaint the public with an important nucleus of works from the Bank’s collection, mostly housed in the executive offices and therefore not ordinarily visible, opening once again to the community the doors of the historic Palazzo Dolfin Manin on the Grand Canal: the exhibition is part of the path of enhancement of the artistic heritage that the Bank has undertaken for some time, in the awareness of the identity value of art testimonies, which represent an extraordinary flywheel for the growth not only cultural of the country.

The exhibition, curated by Pier Paolo Pancotto, presents 22 works by some of the most significant exponents of contemporary art, different in terms of education, culture and experience but linked for personal or professional reasons to Venice, which constitute a sort of ideal tribute of the authors to the lagoon city. The arrangement of the works naturally adapts to the layout of the palace, respecting its historical and cultural identity, and the inclusion of contemporary works in the monumental context proposes a novel dialogue, offering unexpected perspectives to visitors.

THE EXHIBITION PROJECT AND THE WORKS: In the halls on the second floor of Palazzo Dolfin Manin are placed the works of 22 authors different in generation, culture and language, each in their own way linked to the city of Venice, for professional reasons (participation, often repeated, in the Biennale or other major exhibitions; relationships with collectors or business realities present in the city) or personal (birth or residence or death in Venice, emotional ties). Artists also united by their common ability to attest, despite their marked heterogeneity, to the artistic evolution in Italy from the second half of the 20th century to the present.

Testifying in all its declinations to the heated debate at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the following decade between figuration/non-figuration, reality/abstraction/neo-cubism, Renato Guttuso, Leoncillo, Giuseppe Santomaso, Giulio Turcato, Emilio Vedova, among others, are present.

From the same or the immediately following season are the ceramic sculpture of Lucio Fontana, the paintings of Carla Accardi, Alberto Burri and Tancredi (in a completely non-figurative key and with informal accents); then there are the works of the so-called “isolates” - distant from any form of thought or creative association of their time - Giorgio Morandi, Filippo de Pisis and Anton Zoran Mušič.

We then come to the 1960s and the effervescent climate of the so-called “School of Piazza del Popolo” that lives again in the canvases of Mario Schifano and Giosetta Fioroni, and to the evolution of languages accomplished between the 1970s and 1980s in a conceptual key, with the work of Giulio Paolini, and material-expressionist, in that of Pierpaolo Calzolari.

The generation of authors that emerged in the 1990s, caught between “concept” and “image,” traditional communication systems and the Internet, finds voice in the papers of Paolo Canevari and Liliana Moro and in Eva Marisaldi’s bas-relief.

Finally, the marked iconographic and iconological dissimilarity that seamlessly marks the 2000s is described by the works of Nico Vascellari, Marinella Senatore and Namsal Siedlecki, which, together with other recent new acquisitions, project the Bank’s collection into the future.

THE PALACE: The exhibition offers the opportunity to visit the reception rooms of the palace that was home to two important Venetian families-the Dolfin and the Manin-and was the residence of the last Doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin, who was deposed in 1797 by Napoleon Bonaparte.

The palace - the subject of a recent restoration of the exterior elevations - is not only a wonderful example of Renaissance architecture but also a living place, frequented by those who work, study, and research; it is a point of contact with citizens and institutional interlocutors. The elegant architecture of the Sansovino on the Grand Canal-hosting the contemporary debate on sustainability, cooperation, and modernity-is therefore an ideal place to host a selection of contemporary artworks from the Bank’s collection.

List of works:

1. Carla Accardi, Archer with Sienna, 1954, oil and enamel on cementite on canvas, 97x146 cm

2. Alberto Burri, White on red, 1949, oil on canvas, 66x82 cm.

3. Pier Paolo Calzolari, Untitled, 1985, mixed media on cardboard applied on board, cm 103x145

4. Paolo Canevari, Landscape, 2019, industrial exhausted oil on paper, cm 52x160

5. Giosetta Fioroni, Advertising face, colored enamel on canvas, 1968, cm 45x35

6. Lucio Fontana, Female portrait, 1956, reflected ceramic and gold, cm 29x21x21

7. Renato Guttuso, The seamstresses, 1947, oil on canvas, cm 100x81

8. Leoncillo Leonardi, Balustrade element, 1950-52, glazed ceramic, cm 82x72x16

9. Eva Marisaldi, Exceptional transport, 2018, plaster bas-reliefs, 6 elements cm 10x15 each.

10. Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1944-45, oil on canvas, cm 27x32

11. Liliana Moro, The Red and the Wolf, 1998, graphite and pigment on paper, 150x100 cm each (diptych)

12. Anton Zoran Mušič, Women of the islands, 1955, oil on canvas, cm 83x100

13. Giulio Paolini, Equivalence, 1975, pencil, collage and nails on prepared canvas, cm 160x240

14. Tancredi Parmeggiani, Untitled, 1958, oil on canvas, cm 140x140

15. Filippo de Pisis, Romantic still life, 1941, oil on canvas, cm 79.5x98

16. Giuseppe Santomaso, Composition, 1953, oil on canvas, cm 110x70

17. Mario Schifano, From right to left, 1964, oil and enamel on canvas, cm 180x140

18. Marinella Senatore, Untitled, 2020, print and acrylic on canvas, 26 elements, cm 40x40 each.

19. Namsal Siedlecki. Gandhara (II), 2019, electrodeposited copper, cm 27x16x17

20. Giulio Turcato, Workshop, 1948-50, oil on canvas, cm 73x100

21. Nico Vascellari, Nest, 2009, nests, glue, wood, cm 84x275

22. Emilio Vedova, Country Procession, 1943, oil on canvas, 46.8 x 60 cm

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Venice, Bank of Italy holds exhibition featuring works from its collection

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