Aldo Mondino. Viaggi Straordinari
from 08 August 2020 to 26 September 2020
Forte dei Marmi (LU)
Aldo Mondino. Viaggi straordinari
From 7 August to 26 September 2020, the 19th-century rooms of Villa Bertelli in Forte dei Marmi (Lucca) will host a retrospective dedicated to Aldo Mondino’s “Extraordinary Journeys”, curated by Valerio Dehò. The exhibition, organised by Villa Bertelli with the support of the Municipality of Forte dei Marmi, in collaboration with the Aldo Mondino Archive, will open on Friday 7 August at 6.00 pm.
Central to the Turin-based artist’s work is the theme of travel, understood in both a physical and metaphorical sense. Extraordinary journeys born of curiosity and a thirst for discovery, embracing different cultures and exotic worlds, but also the many languages of art encountered over the course of a lifetime.
The artistic realms Aldo Mondino has ‘visited’ over the years are truly numerous, dating back to the early 1960s: from encyclopaedias and herbariums to Felice Casorati, a leading figure in Turin and European painting, to whom he paid homage by reinterpreting the famous ‘Maternità’. He revisited abstract art with grace and irony, Jim Dine’s Pop art, Central European woodcut art, Alberto Giacometti and Umberto Boccioni, without neglecting crossword puzzles, the Kings, the highway code and many other forms of expression. His curiosity and his instinct for mockery, irony, wordplay and parody have driven him to constantly seek new comparisons, to render ‘Mondinian’ that part of the universe with which he has come into contact.
His extraordinary journeys took him to Africa, the Mediterranean basin, and also to India, with an exhibition in Calcutta in 2000 featuring several large-scale works. These were often literary journeys too, that is, opportunities inspired by books or authors he has always loved, such as Paul Bowles and Blaise Cendrars. He has visited Essaouira in Morocco on several occasions, that legendary place where Orson Welles filmed his impossible “Othello”, but also the land of the whirling dervishes of Sufism, with their dance of ecstasy. Exoticism holds a powerful appeal for Mondino: this is demonstrated by the series of carpets painted on panels of Eraclit, a humble industrial material. These works now form part of a dimension in which art transforms culture and the artist appropriates the universe of signs and cultures to which he feels drawn.
‘Mondino, ’writes Valerio Dehò in the catalogue’s critical essay, ‘has created a truly unique cultural coinè, in which contemporary art is not only a focal point for the symbolic, but also an archive of different cultures, a Borgesian panopticon from which to observe the universe from a unique perspective. The artist has truly given travel and the encounter between different worlds and experiences not only a place within contemporary art—which is often turned in on itself—but also the allure of a physical and intellectual adventure. In Italian painting and art, Mondino has brought intelligence and irony; his work has always been an incentive to view art as a continuous and joyful quest.”
The exhibition comprises over forty works, including paintings, sculptures and works on paper, drawn from an important private collection in Tuscany. An entire room is also dedicated to the theme of music, which was very dear to the artist and central to his work.
Aldo Mondino. Extraordinary Journeys
Curated by Valerio Dehò
Villa Bertelli
Viale Giuseppe Mazzini 200, 55042 Forte dei Marmi (Lu)
7 August – 26 September 2020
Opening: Friday 7 August, 6.00 pm
August opening hours: 5.00 pm–10.00 pm (please contact the venue before visiting)
September opening hours: Monday to Friday 9.00 am–1.00 pm and 3.00 pm–7.00 pm, Saturday and Sunday 4.00 pm–7.00 pm.
Free admission.
For information: email: info@villabertelli.it, segreteria@villabertelli.it, website: www.villabertelli.it.
NFC Edizioni catalogue with an essay by Valerio Dehò and extensive illustrations
Central to the Turin-based artist’s work is the theme of travel, understood in both a physical and metaphorical sense. Extraordinary journeys born of curiosity and a thirst for discovery, embracing different cultures and exotic worlds, but also the many languages of art encountered over the course of a lifetime.
The artistic realms Aldo Mondino has ‘visited’ over the years are truly numerous, dating back to the early 1960s: from encyclopaedias and herbariums to Felice Casorati, a leading figure in Turin and European painting, to whom he paid homage by reinterpreting the famous ‘Maternità’. He revisited abstract art with grace and irony, Jim Dine’s Pop art, Central European woodcut art, Alberto Giacometti and Umberto Boccioni, without neglecting crossword puzzles, the Kings, the highway code and many other forms of expression. His curiosity and his instinct for mockery, irony, wordplay and parody have driven him to constantly seek new comparisons, to render ‘Mondinian’ that part of the universe with which he has come into contact.
His extraordinary journeys took him to Africa, the Mediterranean basin, and also to India, with an exhibition in Calcutta in 2000 featuring several large-scale works. These were often literary journeys too, that is, opportunities inspired by books or authors he has always loved, such as Paul Bowles and Blaise Cendrars. He has visited Essaouira in Morocco on several occasions, that legendary place where Orson Welles filmed his impossible “Othello”, but also the land of the whirling dervishes of Sufism, with their dance of ecstasy. Exoticism holds a powerful appeal for Mondino: this is demonstrated by the series of carpets painted on panels of Eraclit, a humble industrial material. These works now form part of a dimension in which art transforms culture and the artist appropriates the universe of signs and cultures to which he feels drawn.
‘Mondino, ’writes Valerio Dehò in the catalogue’s critical essay, ‘has created a truly unique cultural coinè, in which contemporary art is not only a focal point for the symbolic, but also an archive of different cultures, a Borgesian panopticon from which to observe the universe from a unique perspective. The artist has truly given travel and the encounter between different worlds and experiences not only a place within contemporary art—which is often turned in on itself—but also the allure of a physical and intellectual adventure. In Italian painting and art, Mondino has brought intelligence and irony; his work has always been an incentive to view art as a continuous and joyful quest.”
The exhibition comprises over forty works, including paintings, sculptures and works on paper, drawn from an important private collection in Tuscany. An entire room is also dedicated to the theme of music, which was very dear to the artist and central to his work.
Aldo Mondino. Extraordinary Journeys
Curated by Valerio Dehò
Villa Bertelli
Viale Giuseppe Mazzini 200, 55042 Forte dei Marmi (Lu)
7 August – 26 September 2020
Opening: Friday 7 August, 6.00 pm
August opening hours: 5.00 pm–10.00 pm (please contact the venue before visiting)
September opening hours: Monday to Friday 9.00 am–1.00 pm and 3.00 pm–7.00 pm, Saturday and Sunday 4.00 pm–7.00 pm.
Free admission.
For information: email: info@villabertelli.it, segreteria@villabertelli.it, website: www.villabertelli.it.
NFC Edizioni catalogue with an essay by Valerio Dehò and extensive illustrations
Aldo Mondino. Viaggi straordinari
Eiffel è nero, Paris Valencia, 1979
olio su tela
150 × 100 cm
Vietato il sorpasso Art. 106, 1963
olio su faesite
150 × 120 cm
Duetto, 1978
olio su tela
100 × 80 cm
Opere correlate
Nessuna opera correlata trovata