Description
The volume documents the exhibition “Estetica dei visionari” (Aesthetics of Visionaries), an exhibition which takes its title from the essay “Esthétique des visionnaires” (1926) by Henri Focillon and presents works by Amber Andrews, Charles Avery, Srijon Chowhdury, Alessandro Fogo, David Horváth, Margherita Manzelli, Wangechi Mutu and Scipione. The concept of visionaryness distinguishes all the artists in the catalogue: a trait understood as the ability to look beyond sensible reality, an almost prophetic gift that pushes them beyond the visible, to explore the deepest feelings of man.
The combination between the spatial and temporal investigation of reality and the intimate and profound, almost magical experience that derives from it, finds its perfect home in the village of Pavarolo, perched between the hills of Turin and the colors of uncontaminated nature, in particularly in the home and studio of Felice Casorati.
In the Master’s studio, the most visionary works of Scipione, such as his Self-portrait (1930) and the Prophet with a view to Jerusalem (1930) – created in the last years of his life and shortly before the publication of Focillon’s text – dialogue with some works from great imaginative charge, creating a path of connected visions that cross the last decades of the history of Art: the empiricist thinker of Charles Avery who, placing the source of knowledge in experience, becomes a cast, plaster, tangible presence and testimony of a vision concrete; a large canvas by Margherita Manzelli which, through a female figure, insinuates itself into mental spaces beyond reality to the deepest sensitivity of those who observe it; the collages of Wangechi Mutu where the female body, a place of political and cultural clash, becomes a medium of a mythical message in which good wins over evil; and again the works of Alessandro Fogo, capable of blending contemporary painting and suspended narratives, leading us towards visions beyond the simple two-dimensionality of the canvases.
The dialogue between the twentieth century and the contemporary is then amplified through the works of three artists represented by the Ciaccia Levi gallery: Amber Andrews, Srijon Chowdhury and David Horváth investigate visionary universes of everyday life with personal accents that have roots in the history of art.
The exhibition was organized by the Municipality of Pavarolo, in collaboration with the Casorati Archive and the Iannaccone Collection, with the coordination of Francesca Solero.