FORTE DEI MARMI, ITALY – More than 150 people for Elisabetta Rogai’s artistic return in Versilia, an exhibition dedicated to the research of intimate emotions and feelings. It was a real huge crowd – including friends, acquaintances, journalists, members of the local jet-set, cultural and institutional (both Florentine and Tuscan) protagonists – that opened the exhibition “State Archives” in Forte dei Marmi. It is a title that plays on semantics: if the archives are generally understood as physical places to keep books and records, in fact, in the case of Rogai’s paintings instead they become places of memory, tools to bring back memories, convergences and spiritual closeness.
The exhibition will continue until the end of August, but no one wanted to miss the appointment with the vernissage: a lot of people – more than 150 – arrived at the art gallery “Il Forte Antichità e arte contemporanea” by Patrizia Grigolini, as well as the superintendent of the Florentine museum pole Cristina Acidini, the regional counselor Eugenio Giani, the Florence planning’s councilor Elisabetta Meucci, princess Giorgia Pacelli, lawyer Gaetano Pecorella, professor Cesare Sirtori, art collector Fabio Di Michele and many others, all photographed by Fabrizio Gaeta.
The exhibition, which happens to coincide with that of the Czech sculptor Ivan Theimer, was celebrated with wine “I Balzini Pink Label” by Antonella D’Isanto and pecorino cheese “Forme d’Arte” by Paolo Piacenti (whose labels are taken right from Rogai’s paintings), as well as “focaccine” by the atelier bar Versilia “Viennalvce” part of the “Name” group by Giacomo Menici.
For the florentine artist – famous worldwide thanks to EnoArt, the intuition of paint using red wine instead of colors – it is a return in Versilia, where in recent years has already exhibited in the most prestigious location, from the Sant’Agostino cloister in Pietrasanta until Versiliana shows. After the summer event, Elisabetta Rogai will start a period of important exhibitions, including one at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence (December 2014) and the Cloister of Bramante in Rome (spring 2015).