MAEGHT FOUNDATION: AN OPEN-AIR ATELIER
Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin October 16, 2021 - February 13, 2022 (Check the opening on the site)
From Saturday, 16 October, 2021 until Sunday, 13 February, 2022, the Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin is staging the exhibition Maeght Foundation: An Open-Air Atelier. The exhibition will be held partially in the time-honoured rooms of the Pinacoteca (Art Gallery) and partially in the new rooftop garden of the Lingotto, the one-time test track of the former FIAT factory, now renamed Pista 500. The exhibition is curated by Daniela Ferretti and organised by the Pinacoteca Agnelli in partnership with the Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght and MondoMostre, with FIAT as the main partner on the project. On show will be seventy-seven works by great twentieth-century artists, including Braque, Calder, Chagall, Giacometti, Léger, Matisse and Miró, who alongside other masters shared in the passion and vision of the extraordinary project conceived by Aimé Maeght and his wife Marguerite that gave rise to a veritable “openair atelier” on the hillsides of Saint Paul de Vence in south-eastern France. The exhibition focuses on that group of artists who were the first to grasp the potential of a new young couple who, driven by a genuine love for art in all of its forms and blessed with a rare level of managerial ability, staked out a position for themselves at the very forefront of the global art market. As a tribute to the multi-faceted nature of the artistic choices made by the Maeght family, in selecting the works for the exhibition in Turin the curator has emphasised the opportunities afforded to the artists whose works are conserved in Saint Paul de Vence to express themselves through the most diverse media, sometimes even using techniques and materials other than those for which they are generally renowned. Along the exhibition route, drawing has a crucial role to play in all of this. Nine sculptures will be sited outdoors in the parkland of Pista 500, in a setting curated by Marco Palmieri: these pieces represent a small but refined selection of works by twentieth-century artists who were friends of Aimé and Marguerite.
The new garden on the rooftop of the Lingotto is thus experiencing from the outset every aspect of its vocation as a meeting point, encompassing a cutting-edge concept of urban landscape design, a glorious industrial tradition and a commitment to safeguarding and providing access to art. This role, already performed for many years by the Pinacoteca Agnelli, now sees visitors being given the chance to engage with works sited en plein air. ▲
Cultura, inaugura ufficialmente la prima fondazione privata europea: la Fondazione Maeght.
Aimé Maeght e la moglie Marguerite, incontratisi a Cannes nel 1928, avevano legato la loro vita insieme a quella dell’arte, aprendo prima una bottega laboratorio, con il nome ARTE, e poi inaugurando una galleria d’arte a Parigi nel 1945. Il successo della galleria è presto segnato dagli artisti che si legano ai coniugi: Henri Matisse, Marcel Duchamp, Joan Mirò, Marc Chagall e Georges Braque. La Fondazione è dunque l’ultimo importante traguardo dei Maeght, la cui ricchezza intellettuale e di spirito li porta a costruire una vera e propria cittadella d’arte a Saint-Paul-de-Vence, un piccolo borgo fortificato nell’entroterra di Cannes, di cui la Pinacoteca Agnelli ne espone una selezione. La mostra intende evocare e omaggiare la poliedricità delle scelte artistiche della famiglia Maeght, attraverso un percorso non cronologico, quanto piuttosto evocativo. Il titolo, Un atelier a cielo aperto, fa riferimento all’atelier come fucina delle idee, luogo della sperimentazione, in cui l’arte si manifesta in tutte le sue forme. Così la mostra, grazie anche a un allestimento ricercato, intende restituire il senso della circolarità dell’arte, che si sottrae a un ordine prestabilito e cronologico, per favorire un dialogo tra artisti diversi, che si servono di tecniche e materiali differenti. Non a caso, in questa occasione, la Pinacoteca Agnelli esce sulla pista sul tetto del Lingotto, trasformato in giardino pensile, presentando nove sculture, sempre provenienti dalla Fondazione Maeght. La condivisione dell’arte col mondo è ciò che, sempre, ha persuaso i coniugi Maeght così come Giovanni e Marella Agnelli. ▲