From January 26th to May 26th it is possible to visit the «Ligabue» exhibition, set up at the Promotrice delle Belle Arti in Turin: 71 paintings, 8 sculptures and 13 drawings that trace the life, psyche and tormented history of one of the greatest Italian artists of the 20th century. A fascinating journey into the production of this visionary genius, always evolving, and in his passionate research, with which he knew how to invent and renew his works in their pressing emotional suggestion, in a popular and refined iconography.
(lapresse)
The exhibition is curated by Giovanni Faccenda, takes advantage of the patronage of the “Fondazione Augusto Agosta Tota per Antonio Ligabue” and is produced by Sm.Art, with the creative and production direction of WeAreBeside. The exhibition unfolds through 8 rooms and comes almost a year after the death of Augusto Agosta Tota, who was the artist’s friend, promoter and scholar. The works come from private collections, from the famous self-portraits “Tiger Head” of 1953 and “Leopard” of 1955, from the “Motorcyclist” of 1954 to the “Crossing of Siberia” of 1959, from the sculptures “Lion and Lioness” of 1935 to ” Pantera” of 1938 and “Crouching Lioness” of 1940 up to the “Bust of Gorilla” of 1956, from the drawings with animal figures to the “Self-portrait” in pencil of 1955.
«Art, when it was possible for him or when he himself chose, voluntarily, to practice it – explains the curator, Giovanni Faccenda – represented for Ligabue not a therapeutic itinerary or a saving escape from one’s own incurable torments existential but the raw story of the same people, through witty allegories characterized by the presence of beloved animals. Shaping clay, drawing on sheets of paper kept hidden like a treasure or painting at the easel, obsessively looking at his reflection in the nearby mirror, livid after repeatedly hitting himself, all this was the only way for Ligabue to escape, at least temporarily, from his own, fatal, earthly odyssey.” The exhibition is accompanied by the catalog published by BesideBooks, with a critical text by Giovanni Faccenda, and texts by Simona and Cinzia Agosta Tota, Francesca Biagioli, Samantha Patorno and Manlio Polzella.