Let’s talk about Noses for Art an unusual review of works compared a Merulana Palace which from Saturday 25 March until 21 May 2023 proposes an aesthetic, historical, intellectual, metaphorical and why not philosophical journey, around the organ that first forms in the maternal womb, a hereditary somatic trait and identity that distinguishes the face and gives unequivocal identity with the character and personality of homo sapiens individuals. Nose as instinct and as a metaphor we said. Very distinguishable trait of what characterizes a man and which for centuries has been a physiognomic and pre-scientific attribute in evoking, determining, anticipating the destiny or vocation of individuals in history.
Oscar Jespers, 1925
Nose as shape, nose sensory organ bearer of the most primordial, instinctive, animal and emotional of the biological tools of interaction with reality with which humans are endowed. And therefore certainly a Proustian vehicle of memories and ancestral memories and even more than an aesthetic reason for investigation and discovery of the world.
The two curators – Joanna DeVos e Melania Rossi – they gladly play with it and stage a far from trivial exhibition. And in the presentation they do not forget to remind the audience how Noses for Art find its origins in the meeting of two curatorial sensibilities that “going by nose” seek and find unusual and unexpected connections, bringing on a level of comparison two realities and two worlds, Italian and Belgian art, in an ironic key, not without improvisation, but with great flair.
If you would like to take a little by the nose, go by nose or sniff out a good story, an amusing tale, rambling and certainly more intelligent than many other cultural proposals in the city, this exhibition seems to be made for you.
It takes a nose in art.
Luigi Ontani, Luis Do Rosario
NOSES FOR ART
from 25 March to 21 May 2023
edited by Joanna De Vos and Melania Rossi
An encounter between works by Italian and Belgian artists, exhibited following two different paths but united by a single, intriguing, interpretation: the “nose for art”
Merulana Palace
Via Merulana 121, Rome
THE ARTISTS ON SHOW:
Contemporary artists:
Francis Alÿs, Francesco Arena, Michael Borremans, Maurizio Cattelan, Michael Dans, Laura de Coninck, Peter de Cupere, Jan Fabre, Mariana Ferratto, Thomas Lerooy, Emiliano Maggi, Sophie Muller, Luigi Ontani, Daniele Puppi, Anna Raimondo, Marta Roberti, Yves Velter, Serena Vestrucci.
Loans of works by Belgian artists from the early 20th century:
Jos Albert, Pierre-Louis Flouquet, Robert Giron, Oscar Jespers, Paul Joostens, René Magritte, George Minne, Constant Permeke, Léon Spilliaert, Marcel Stobbaerts, Henri Van Straten, Fernand Wery.
In dialogue with artists from the permanent collection:
Giacomo Balla, Duilio Cambellotti, Felice Casorati, Giorgio De Chirico, Antonio Donghi, Ercole Drei, Guglielmo Janni, Leoncillo Leonardi, Antonietta Raphael, Francesco Trombadori, Alberto Ziveri.