From June 13, 2024 to June 16, 2024

Art Basel – Magnificent Symposium

Mazzoleni is thrilled to be participating in the Galleries Sector at Art Basel this June, presenting a group exhibition entitled Magnificent Symposium. This presentation offers a unique opportunity to explore five leading Italian artists spanning two generations: Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), Alberto Savinio (1891-1952), Salvo (1947-2015), Giulio Paolini (1940) and Michelangelo Pistoletto (1933). Exploration of their work will centre around the theme of myths and legends, uncovering the similarities and divergences that arise from the distinct languages each artist adopts and the consequential narrative attitude of mythical, symbolic and dreamlike elements.

Art Basel 2024 | Messe Basel | Booth E19, Hall 2.0
VIP Days (by invitation only): 11 – 12 June 2024
Vernissage (by invitation only): 12 June
Public Days: 13 – 16 June

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“The whole modern mythology still in the making has its source in the work, almost indivisible from the spirit, of Alberto Savinio and his brother Giorgio de Chirico”.

André Breton, Anthologie de l’humour noir (1940)

Giorgio and Andrea de Chirico – who took the name Alberto Savinio in 1914 – were very close and shared an international education, influenced by classical Mediterranean culture, German romanticism and nihilist philosophy, and the Parisian avant-garde. Both born in Greece (in Volo, de Chirico, in Athens, Savinio), the two brothers would be profoundly influenced by the years of their youth, characterised by an atmosphere steeped in classical and mythological imagery. Myth, antiquity and the classical tradition are rethought through the modern lens of the avant-garde and citation, reinterpreted to address the great questions of the 20th-century. It is Savinio himself who, in his 1913 play Les chants de la mi-mort, introduces a series of surreal characters, among whom appears a man “without voice, without eyes and without a face.” This is the first description of the mannequin, the archetypal metaphysical character who would later appear in de Chirico’s famous paintings. These faceless figures, part human, part statues, part objects, are composed of an arsenal of geometric figures that surround and hold them, pointed and deliberately disproportionate, with a monstrous but at the same time fragile stature.

From the 1950s are Le muse inquietanti (Disquieting Muses). First made in the 1910s, mysterious characters whose appearance resembles that of mannequins, return to the scene in this painting.

The scene is dominated by a deserted square, illuminated by an imaginary light that gives the setting a dreamlike and mysterious atmosphere. The background of the canvas has a distant horizon and the long, sharp shadows create a marked contrast, amplifying the feeling of illusion and uncertainty. In the centre of the composition, two statues of classical muses, traditional symbols of inspiration from ancient art, stand, yet instead of embodying beauty and harmony, they appear distorted and disturbing, with expressionless faces and rigid postures. The souls, forms and characters of Greek myth, along with the quiet majesty of classical statuary, constitute the foundations of de Chirico’s inspiration. He draws on ancient Greek art through marble heads, amphorae and statues preserved in Italy’s most important archaeological museums.

“A plaster statue simulates an original that we do not see, a photograph refers us to something we do not directly witness at that moment, a perspective drawing distances the plane of vision by the little that allows us not to see the canvas on which it is made. I am fascinated by any device of falsification, of faking the narrative through materials.”

Interview with Giulio Paolini by Angela Vettese, Time Machine, in Flash Art, May 24, 2017.

Giulio Paolini’s artistic production constitutes an in-depth exploration of the creative process in art. Artwork exists in a pre-existing dimension, albeit in a platonic way, with respect to the artist who made it tangible, inviting the viewer to elaborate his or her own interpretation.
The work L’altra figura (The Other Figure) (1983) consists of two plaster casts of the Roman marble copy of the head of Phidias’ Athena Lemnia, one of three bronze statues in the Acropolis of Athens honoring the goddess of wisdom Athena.
While conveying an apparent calm, the two busts seem to question whether those fragments are part of them, whilst reflecting on the irretrievability of the past. The aura of mystery and the allusion to absence evoke themes of melancholy and nostalgia for the classical past, the cast, echoing an absent model and a distant, mythical image, serves as a privileged tool for Paolini.

In his work Clio (1977), Paolini situating within a room’s spatial arrangement a mirrored vis-à-vis doubling of two identical photographic reproductions of the muse Clio. Through this, the artist engages directly with the muse of history, invoking the influence of narratives in shaping our comprehension of the world. However, Paolini moves beyond mere commemoration of the past, suggesting that myth remains a dynamic and evolving force, deeply interwoven with contemporary human experience. (The image titled Clio from a statue in the Villa Borghese is taken from T. Hope’s volume, Costumes of the Greeks and Romans, Dover, New York 1962, table 109).

I think that the concept of time is fundamental to understanding my work. Compared to traditionally conceived art, there is a difference in my work, which is as follows: no longer just two-dimensionality, no longer just three-dimensionality, but four-dimensionality.

(Germano Celant and Michelangelo Pistoletto Continuum, in Germano Celant, Pistoletto, Fabbri Editori, Milan, 1992, p. 27)

Michelangelo Pistoletto’s work encompasses a plurality of languages ranging from performance to sculptural installation. His work is a masterful combination of conceptual and visual elements, in which myth is often a tool for exploring the relationship between the individual and contemporary society, investigating social, political and cultural issues.

In his works, Pistoletto resorts to allegory to deal with themes such as identity, memory and time. A leading exponent of Arte Povera, beginning in the 1960s Pistoletto produced mirror paintings, which challenge the traditional idea of the painting as a window to reality, actively involving the viewer in the creation of the work itself through reflection. The idea of a reflective surface recalls the classical conception of art as a mirror of reality and as a tool for reflecting on our role in the ever-changing universe.

“I was interested in saints who were a bit like Ercole and the Idra, world subjects. The dragon is there in Greek mythology, in the Catholic religion, but also in Chinese art… I was interested in the symbolic meaning of the figure of the man fighting against the dragon.”

The artist in Conversazione mobile between Salvo and Laura Cherubini in Laura Cherubini, Il paese delle meraviglie e le Tavole della Legge, Volpaia Castle, 1994.

The practice of revivalism and the incorporation of citations can be traced back to the late 18th and early 19th-centuries. This period served as a pivotal laboratory for reimagining and experimenting with past references. One of the most significant moments of the last century in this regard was discovered in the metaphysics of Giorgio de Chirico. De Chirico’s theatrical Neoclassicism shows a self-critical and self-ironic awareness that we find mirrored in Salvo’s archaeological approach.

This “archaeological spirit” accompanies Salvo’s entire artistic parabola.

It nourishes the languages and techniques with which he experiments from the late 1960s and early 1970s. These include marble tombstones with engravings, self-portraits such as Cristo benedicente and photographic self-portraits inspired by Raffaello. He also creates lists of illustrious historical and artistic figures of the past, in which he includes his name.

Salvo resumed painting in 1973. At an early stage, the iconography of his works focused on various versions of “St. Martin and The Poor” and “St. George and the Dragon” in their Renaissance interpretations, which he in turn transported into the 20th-century by sometimes substituting his own face for that of the saint depicted and adopting an unusual palette of lilac, purple, pink, indigo, yellow and acid green.

The monumental work Il trionfo di San Giorgio, 1974 is exhibited at Art Basel Unlimited.

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Art Basel – Magnificent Symposium

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