FERRARA ARTE FOUNDATION – Volume dedicated to the cultural project of Palazzo dei Diamanti and its historical director
He volume”Circle the square” is dedicated to the cultural project that has made Palazzo dei Diamanti one of the liveliest and most fruitful centers of contemporary art in Italy and in the world, thanks to the intuition, passion and work of Franco Farinahistoric director of the Civic Galleries of Modern Art in Ferrara (1963-1993).
The “maestro” Farina, in fact, gave birth to a season that still stands out today for the richness, variety and novelty of the proposals. Protagonists of that golden age were the great interpreters of the international scene, icons of modernity such as Man Ray and Andy Warhol, but also many emerging personalities, who consecrated their art precisely in Ferrara.
The book, edited by Chiara Vorrasi, Ada Patrizia Fiorillo e Massimo Marchetti, published in June of 2023 by Ferrara Arte Editore, is a tale of many voices to rereading a significant moment in the artistic, cultural and social history of Ferrara, capable of communicating with the international scene. At the same time, the volume intends to draw an all-round portrait of the personality of Franco Farina, its main architect.
Over the course of thirty years, under the impulse of Franco Farina, the “city of a hundred wonders” awakens from the torpor that trapped it in the reflection of the splendor of the Este family, becoming a new, dynamic crossroads of initiatives and projects involving active artists in every part of the world. From the 1960s to the 1990s, Ferrara thus assumed a leading role in the Italian contemporary circuit: the driving force became the museum complex of Palazzo dei Diamantiseat-symbol of a ramified system of major exhibitions, avant-garde events, experimental education and communication programs.
In fact, the list of exhibitions organized by Farina has almost a thousand titles, to which are added the many events that ignited the city’s cultural life, also thanks to an extensive network of contacts, alliances, partnerships established, and the fundamental contribution of a team of technicians and curators, among which Lola Bonora stands out, director of the Centro Video Arte, flanked by Carlo Ansaloni and Giovanni Grandi.
The legacy of that golden age is tangible both in the civic collection of the late twentieth century and in Farina’s private collection, both settled over the decades of management at Palazzo dei Diamanti. The two branches of the collection, the public and the private one, were reunited in 2019 thanks to the donation of the widow, Lola Bonora, who gave the Ferrara museums a vast nucleus of works of art that belonged to her husband (who died in 2018), realizing thus his last wishes and, in fact, crowning his educational-cultural design for the city.
In recent years, various initiatives have been aimed at studying this important heritage and at shedding light on the artistic and cultural period of which it is an expression. Thanks to the synergy between the Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries and the University of Ferrara, a vast research campaign has been launched involving emeritus scholars. Between 2019 and 2021, the Galleries, in collaboration with the Ferrara Arte Foundation and the Cultural Heritage Service of the Emilia-Romagna Region, inventoried and rearranged the museum’s vast documentary archive. In 2019, the Ferrara University acquired the director’s personal library, a precious study tool (destined to the University since 2016) which encompasses the wide range of his interests. Equally crucial was the cataloging of the works from the Farina donation, initiated by the Galleries and completed thanks to a scholarship from the University of Ferrara coordinated by Ada Patrizia Fiorillo. The fruits of that teamwork have flowed into the publication “Circle the square”.
The volume is divided into two parts, according to two opposite focal points. The first – a “Author’s portrait” with several hands – is reserved for the testimonies of well-known personalities who in various capacities have been protagonists of Farina’s programming or have participated in it: artists such as Marina Abramović, Maurizio Bonora, Fernanda Fedi, Giuliano Giuman, Ugo La Pietra, Federica Marangoni, Elio Marchegianiand art historians or critics, such as Renato Barilli, Claudio Cerritelli, Bruno D’Amore, Giorgio Di Genova, Marilena Pasquali and Vittorio Sgarbi, restore the climate of unscrupulous openness and liberality that was breathed in Ferrara. The line of work inaugurated by Franco Farina emerges, as well as his interpretation of the museum, experienced both as an experimental “laboratory” capable of intercepting and disseminating current trends, and as an information and educational “service” capable of guaranteeing concrete opportunities for social and cultural growth, and on the other hand aimed at consolidating an Italian public for contemporary art.
(Communication by Ferrara Arte Foundation)
In the photos – downloadable at the bottom of the page – some moments of the presentation of the book on Thursday 8 June 2023 at the Pinacoteca di Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara. In the last two historical photos in black and white:
– Janus, Andy Warhol and Franco Farina on the occasion of the exhibition “Ladies and Gentlemen”, Palazzo dei Diamanti, 1975 Ferrara, © Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, photo Roberto Bruzzo;
– Robert Rauschenberg during the preparation of his solo show at Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, © Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, photo Roberto Bruzzo
Downloadable images:
