Exhibition project “Milán, vitrina de la modernidad”
Visivalab promoted and produced ‘Milan, a showcase of modernity’, a unique exhibition on Italian art of the first half of the 20th century, organised by the Museo de Bellas Artes, Gravina and the Diputación de Alicante and curated by Nicoletta Colombo, Danka Giacon and Serena Redaelli. The exhibition accompanies the visitor on a journey through the modernity of Italian art, with a focus on painting born and developed in the city of Milán and its dialogue with other Italian artists of the period.
The project the project is supported by relevant institutional partners such as the Generalitat Valenciana, the Diputación de Alicante, the Italian Embassy in Madrid, the Consulate General of Italy in Barcelona and the Italian Cultural Institute of Barcelona. The exhibition brings together a collection of masterpieces with sensible historical and artistic value by more than 40 renowned artists, including Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Giorgio de Chirico, Fortunato Depero, Achille Funi and Mario Sironi. This exceptional body of art has been loaned by over 60 prestigious institutions and private lenders, both in Italy and abroad, underlining the relevance and international scope of this exhibition.
CLIENT Museo de Bellas Artes – Mubag & Diputación de Alicante
CURATORS Nicoletta Colombo, Danka Giacon and Serena Redaelli
DATES 28 November 2024 – 4 May 2025
FEATURES
- Exhibition project
- Museographic design
- Graphic design and visual identity of the exhibition
- Creation of an audiovisual narrative
- Graphic design of the catalogue
- Coordination of the loan campaign
- Management of transportation and insurance of the artworks
- Coordination of production and installation
Project
Visivalab handled the entire exhibition process, working in close collaboration with curators, institutions, museums and private lenders. At the same time, we led the design of the exhibition, coordinated the loan campaign, designed the museographic route, and managed the production and mounting of the exhibition. The result of this effort is an extraordinary retrospective of Italian art from the first half of the 20th century, bringing together an extraordinary body of works in a lively and meticulously designed setting.
ARTWORKS LOAN CAMPAIGN
The relevance of the works and the lending institutions and museums posed a significant challenge for the loan campaign. This process included the coordination of insurance, transport logistics and the supervision of the installation, ensuring the utmost care and precision at every stage.
© Diputación de Alicante
EXHIBITION ITINERARY DESIGN
Together with the curatorial team, we designed a captivating narrative that runs through the milestones of Milan’s evolution as an Italian metropolis of economic, artistic and cultural reference. The exhibition is structured in sections from the dawn of the 20th century to the Corrente movement of the late 1930s.
The exhibition is conceived as a temporal and thematic journey, starting with the fertile legacy of Divisionism and the 1906 Sempione Universal Exhibition and culminating on the threshold of the Second World War. Along the way, milestones such as Futurism, the Italian Novecento, a special section devoted to the group Les Italiens de Paris, historical Italian Abstractionism and the Corrente years are explored. The exhibition is enriched by rare historical documents, including posters, photographs, costumes, textile designs, films and magazines that provide a more complete context for each section.
At Visivalab we have worked on the contextualisation of the works and historical materials so that the public in Alicante can fully immerse themselves in the Milanese spirit of that period by exploring different visual, sound and audiovisual resources.
A macro-chronology at the beginning of the route places the visitor in the European historical, artistic and cultural context that frames the exhibition. Each room features large-scale period images that amplify the visual impact and reinforce the narrative, as well as five videos produced especially for the exhibition that bring together works, period photographs and other materials in digital format.
These videos are complemented by a sound installation, in which the declamation of Marinetti’s Parole in Libertà can be listened to in front of a giant poster of the original publication. The historical journey culminates with the projection of an Istituto Luce news movie documenting the devastation of Milan after the bombing in September 1943.
GRAPHIC IDENTITY AND SCENOGRAPHY
A carefully thought layout envelops the visitor, intensifying the experience of the visit. A palette of bright colors gives theatricality to the space, creating a visual contrast that frames and highlights the exhibited pieces. The exhibition layout is organized on two complementary levels: the vertical one, where the walls host the paintings, photographs and texts, and the horizontal one, with showcases and display units designed specifically, which present supporting documents, clothes and fabrics that enrich the scientific discourse.
The graphic identity of the exhibition plays with the fragmentation of the title into two planes, a resource that is recreated in the overlapping panels that present the texts and the in-depth texts (available in three languages). The artwork L’addio (1917), an oil painting by Anselmo Bucci, was chosen for the visual identity of the exhibition. The poster was distributed on advertising media such as canvases outside the museum, in Alicante’s TRAM stations and on buses that circulate around the city, extending the exhibition’s reach and visibility.
© Diputación de Alicante
INAUGURATION CEREMONY
“Milan, showcase of modernity” opened its doors to the public on November 28 with an inauguration ceremony attended by the Councilor for Culture, Juan de Dios Navarro, the Director of the Department of Culture, Mª José Argudo, the Honorary Consul of Italy in Alicante, Danilo Angelini, the Director of the Department of Culture of the Italian Embassy in Madrid, Teodora Danisi, and the co-curator of the exhibition Danka Giacon. During the event, the director of the museum, Jorge A. Soler, emphasized how the exhibition represents a real leap in quality for the Mubag, thanks to its scenography and the impressive artistic corpus that composes it.
CATALOGUE
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, edited by Nicoletta Colombo, Danka Giacón and Serena Redaelli, with a graphic design conceived by Visivalab and curated by Franco Cosimo Panini.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project has been possible thanks to the collaboration of the lenders:
- Archivio Associazione NoMus, Fondo Futurismo, Collezione Russolo-Pratella, Milano
- Archivio Centrale dello Stato, sezione Brevetti, Roma
- Archivio Giuseppe Migneco, Milano
- Archivio Renato Birolli, Milano
- Archivio Storico Luce, Roma
- Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya
- Associazione Mauro Reggiani, Milano
- Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
- BKV Fine Art, Milano
- Camera dei Deputati, Roma
- Casa Cavazzini Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Udine. Collezione Astaldi
- Civica Raccolta delle Stampe “Achille Bertarelli”, Castello Sforzesco, Milano
- Civico Museo Revoltella – Galleria d’arte moderna, Trieste
- Collezione Miche Berra, comodato Museo Luigi Mallé, Dronero
- Comitato Luigi Veronesi & Galleria 10 A.M. ART, Milano
- Comitato per il Catalogo generale dell’opera di Bruno Cassinari, Milano
- Confagricoltura, Milano, Lodi e Monza Brianza
- Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como
- Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria, Alessandria
- Fondazione Corrente, Milano
- GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Torino
- Galleria Biasutti & Biasutti, Torino
- Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milano
- Mart, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto. Archivio del ’900. Fondo Giannina Censi e Fondo Fortunato Depero
- Mart, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto. Collezione VAF-Stiftung
- Matteo Maria Mapelli Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Monza
- Ministero della Cultura – Archivio di Stato di Como. Fondo Filande e Tessiture Costa
- Musei Civici e Pinacoteca di Alessandria, Alessandria
- Museo Civico d’Arte, Pordenone
- Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano. Collezione Città di Lugano. Donazione Chiattone
- Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea “Filippo de Pisis”, Ferrara. Donazione Fondazione Giuseppe Pianori
- Museo del Novecento, Milano
- Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania
- Museo del Tessuto, Prato. Collezione Famiglia Fineschi
- Museo dell’Aeronautica Gianni Caproni, Collezioni Fondazione Museo storico del Trentino, Trento
- Museo di Palazzo d’Arco, Mantova
- Museo Storico Italiano della Guerra, Rovereto
- Società per le Belle Arti ed Esposizione Permanente, Milano
Colecciones particulares:
- Archivio Manlio Rho, Como
- Collezione Gualandi Mazzoni, Ferrara
- Collezione Lietti Ambrosoli, Como
- Collezione Maria Gregotti, Milano
- Collezione Vicente Sassu Urbina, Milano
- Fondo Villani – Scarpellini, Milano
- Foto Archivio Franca Alliaud, Milano
- Studio Guicciardo Sassoli Art Exhibitions & Archives, Bologna
- And other private lenders who preferred to remain anonymous.
