The story of Giancarlo Ligabue is that of a successful entrepreneur, who for his whole life was divided between the work and the passion of a paleontologist-explorer that led him to the four corners of the world; 130 expeditions in 5 continents, to discover remote civilizations, distant worlds and cultures different from his own, to get to know and make known.
The love for knowledge drove him to study, research, catalog, ending up collecting an immense heritage of works, documents and testimonies that have converged in the Study and Research Center founded in 1973, with firm roots in Venice, at Palazzo Erizzo-Ligabue, the entrepreneur’s casket-house, on the Grand Canal.
“The discovery is in the one who knows how to see”, said Giancarlo, and he dreamed that the center would carry out research on ancient peoples and other cultures even beyond his person, for the pleasure of knowledge. And so it was.
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After Giancarlo’s death, on 25 January 2015, that precious heritage passed to his son Inti (the Inca name of the sun god) who decided not to disperse it but rather to open it to new perspectives, new visions, new challenges. And so a year later, on January 25, 2016, the “Giancarlo Ligabue” Foundation was inaugurated: a homage from son to father who in these first five years of life has already enjoyed international success.
They have been very intense years: the Foundation has produced four major exhibitions (“The world that was not there” on the ancient civilizations of Latin America; “Before the alphabet”, a trip to Mesopotamia at the origins of writing; “Idols”, on the primordial and sacred representation of the human body; “La Grande Impresa” dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the family business); six “Dialogues” with great personalities from the world of culture and science (Vito Mancuso; Philippe Daverio; Piergiorgio Odifreddi; Carlo Vanoni; Alberto Angela; Samantha Cristofoletti); continued the publication of the six-monthly “Ligabue Magazine”, also giving readers the opportunity to download the first 50 issues of the magazine for free, which will celebrate 40 years in 2022.
Three major exhibitions
For the fifth birthday, Inti Ligabue has thought about a qualitative leap, presenting to the public three major exhibitions that will mark the next three years of the Foundation. Exhibitions that will no longer be based exclusively on the Ligabue Collection but will make use of loans from major international museums, to ensure the highest scientific profile. The first of these appointments is for October 15 in Venice, at Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, with “Power & Prestige. The art of the sticks of power in Oceania ”, shows that also signs the start of the partnership between the Ligabue Foundation and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, co-promoter of the exhibition that in 2022 will be hosted in the French museum. Curated by Steven Hooper – Director of the Sainsbury Research Unit at the University of East Anglia – the exhibition will bring together, for the first time, over 140 sticks of power made in the 18th and 19th centuries across Oceania, with loans also from the British Museum in London and a dozen belonging to the Ligabue Collection.