Galleria dell’Accademia, Art returns to art

FLORENCE, ITALY – Art returns to Art is an expression Luciano Fabro coined for a series of lectures he held between 1981 and 1997 at universities, academies and museums all over the world. Assuming this expression as the title of an exhibition to be held at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence  (May 8th -November 4th)  means embracing the principle whereby, though occurring with different modalities through time and despite the inevitable fractures that mark its development, all of art unfolds from a single root which is articulated, in a continuous flow, in the different territories of our culture.

A discourse on the origins and the persistence of models and forms is the very essence of art history, of its languages and its visual and plastic modalities of all time; it also introduces a reflection which, through memory, evokes connections and complex thoughts, forming a system that enables reasoning on figures, the processes of composing, and the archetypes of making art.

In the work of the great artists, this approach of mediation and uninterrupted reformulation of the sources does not lead to empty nostalgic evocations, but instead goes well beyond the praxis of the ‘copy’, of the d’après and of the quotation, and generates profoundly innovative creations: the decision this exhibition proposes thus considers history and iconology as vibrant forms of affiliation, for a language still full of interpretational possibilities.

The venue that will host the exhibition, home of Michelangelo’s David and Prisoners, along with outstanding collections including a vast and important collection of fourteenth-century Florentine painting, takes on the shape of the ideal space to give concrete form to a dialogue between artworks of the past and those by modern and contemporary artists, offering the public the experience of a continuous counterpoint. The show will indeed not be limited to the rooms specifically dedicated to temporary shows but will instead extend to the rooms of the permanent collections, where the placement of twentieth-century and contemporary artworks will be more immediately and clearly evident.

The shortlist of the artists who will be showing include names of the highest level, such as: Louise Bourgeoise, Francis Bacon, Antonio Catelani, Martin Creed, Gino De Dominicis, Marcel Duchamp, Luciano Fabro, Hans Peter Feldmann, Gilbert and George, Antony Gormley, Yves Klein, Sol Le Witt, Eliseo Mattiacci, Piet Mondrian, Olaf Nicolai, Luigi Ontani, Giulio Paolini, Claudio Parmiggiani, Giuseppe Penone, Pablo Picasso, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alfredo Pirri, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Alberto Savinio, Fiona Tan, Thomas Struth, Bill Viola, and Andy Warhol.

A programme of side events including conferences, meetings with artists, concerts and performances, will flank the exhibition in view of more closely examining or amplifying the themes proposed.