2017 GUERNICA, ICONA DI PACE

“.....until the doors of hate fall” (Pablo Neruda)

The Guernica cartoon, which I only rediscovered after lengthy research, originated from a fundamental value - friendship. It was friendship that sparked an innovative project involving one of the greatest art patrons, Nelson Rockefeller, one of the 20th-century's most influential and brilliant artists, Pablo Picasso, and the weaver Jacqueline de la Baume Durrbach, who was able to restate and "weave" a painting using the ancient art of tapestry.

The project started when Picasso, encouraged by Rockefeller, sought to give new life to Guernica, a richly symbolic work and one of the most powerful pieces condemning the effects of war. Guernica is the first of a series of 26 cartoons that Durrbach, under the guidance and supervision of Picasso, weaved, turning paintings into tapestries. This unique collaboration in 20th-century art took a significant period of time, from 1955 to 1973.

This absolutely wonderful story, which we wish to tell, hinged on a very special synergy between three brilliant people - Rockefeller, Picasso, Durrbach - that is so masterful it is impossible to determine precisely where the work of each begins and ends.

The Guernica painting was originally created for the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, but was then sent across Europe, South America and the United States, where it went on display at MoMA in 1958. So much travelling left the painting fragile and led Rockefeller to involve his friend Picasso in its transformation into a tapestry. The Rockefeller archive still has records of the agreement and related details from April 1955. These specify how the tapestry would be purchased and that it was supposed to be created under the complete guidance and supervision of Picasso, who also wholeheartedly agreed on the 11 chosen colours.

"Picasso finds the tapestry a masterpiece", wrote the editeur for the commissioning of the tapestries, Petronella Van Doesburg, in a letter to Rockefeller dated 13 February 1956. Picasso was so taken by the work - enchanté was the precise word she used - he decided only the Durrbachs would ever be allowed to weave his works!

The Guernica cartoon should thus not be seen merely as a one-off, but as the start of a unique project. Our goal is not only to tell the story of the cartoon, but also to use unusual, interactive material - maybe even holograms and 3D images - to help the viewer understand that this work is not an illustration of the event, but a representation of a series of complex images that the viewer needs guidance in understanding. This will show Guernica must be read backwards, from right to left, like the world at war Picasso is seeking to portray. In multiplying the viewpoints, Picasso seems to segment the space. A triangle in the centre of the work initially escapes the viewer, but guides one's gaze towards the light. This series of visual stimuli help us, once recognised and understood, in this battle against the evil that is starkly represented here by war.

Displaying the Guernica cartoon for the first time in the Senate of Italian Republic in Rome in 2017, on the 80th anniversary of the creation of the painting, and telling this amazing story of three brilliant 20th-century people is a statement of the fundamental values of peace and friendship, values that were essential to the creation of these extraordinary works, of which the Guernica cartoon is the start.

At this moment in history, confirming the importance of the values that underscore this creation and the philanthropic intent of the whole process, based on Nelson Rockefeller's firm belief in the “transformative power of art", is akin to reaffirming the importance of "beauty and the creative spirit" for all of us and the power of art to convey values.

Serena Baccaglini

Senato della Repubblica, Sala Zuccari 14 dicembre 2017- 8 gennaio 2018

Magi 900 , museo delle eccellenze artistiche e storiche

Pieve di Cento , 13 gennaio  - 4 marzo 2018

TIZIANO VANITAS

Beginning with the analysis of two works by Titian preserved in Czech Republic , namely the so-called Vanitas belonging to the Prague Castle Collections and The Flaying of Marsias housed in the Archbishop’s Palace in Kromêriz, the exhibition and the catalogue  deal with problematic aspects, too often circumvented, involving the artistic and the existential life of the Cadore-born painter through extensive documentation.

Presenting these works alongside the Master’s famous masterpieces, such as Flora from the Uffizi Gallery, the book particularly delves into the preparation of the model inside the workshop, the reality of the model, the production of replicas, the success of the artist, while also involving issues related to the intention and manipulations of self-portraits.

Research has been completed with a detailed illustration of the Master’s seal and, for the first time, an accurate critical edition of the diploma issued by the Emperor Charles V in 1533 that granted Titian the titles of Count Palatine and Cavaliere , both preserved of Palazzo della Magnifica Comunitá del Cadore.

Professor Lionello Puppi

It is said murderers always return to the scene of their crime, perhaps, to view again the consequences of their savagery or simply to feel once more the excitement of that moment. Professor Lionello Puppi and Serena Baccaglini- the admirable conceivers and curators of the exhibition Tiziano, Vanitas . The poet of the image and the shade of beauty, at the Prague Castle- wanted in this case to return stubbornly to the scene of “crime” committed against Rudolph II and the late 16th -century intellectuality of Bohemia, which had carefully and wonderfully gathered together an enviable collection of Titian’s works.

Clearly it was impossible to reconstruct an entire patrimony dispersed by the monarch’s courtesans on his death, and later with the Thirty Years’ War , but an attempt was made to reconstruct some of the precious atmosphere of the great painter from Cadore. Titian therefor, returns to Prague Castle after four decades and again takes over the rooms where he “ lived” with his works, showing off, with a hint of shamelessness, his Vanitas and recounting his human story through his intense self-portraits.

We rediscover intact a fascination with the feminine, the magical sensuality of Titian’s brushstrokes in the face of the young women intently admiring themselves in the mirror, in the same way that it is possible to glimse in Apollo and Marsyas the premonitory signs of later spiritual and mystical expressiveness in which colour would lose its compactness and edges and profiles become more indistinct and uncertain.

But it is the women in the moment of “Vanitas” who have the lion’s share at Prague Castle- in particular Violante Palma , the Flora - and who remind us the importance of the female figure in the artistic and human journey of the artist, along with his beloved wife and daughter Cecilia and Lavinia, and surrounded by the models and numerous lovers of his close artistic friends Aretino and Sansovino.

But this exhibition also reintroduces us to Titian “ the political painter, ” a man with relationships and friendships with the powerful of his time and, above all, with the man on whose empire the sun never set, Charles V, who made him a Count Palatine, sealing this honour with a parchment that, remarkably, we are able to admire in the Castle alongside the artist’s original personal seal.

I would like to thank in particular my friend Serena Baccaglini , who pursued with  indomitable tenacity and extraordinary skill the project of bringing Titian - the go-to painter not only for the Italian courts but for the clients in Spain and elsewhere in Europe back to Czech Republic where, over the centuries, he gained innumerable admirers.

Italian Ambassador in Prague Aldo Amati

FRANCIS BACON & BOHUMIL HRABAL

TWO GENIUSES

"Modern prose cannot be written without a certain degree of erudition, without the knowledge of what is happening in the other fields of art, especially in the fine arts.  Fine arts and literature are inseparable."

Bohumil Hrabal, 1970

Two extraordinary artistic genii:  the Irish painter Francis Bacon and the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal.  Two creative forces that have never encountered each other previously are presented one alongside the other, in an original artistic dialogue that uses different means of expression.

An imaginary dialogue between two artists that are very similar, not only from the artistic point of view but also existentially:  if Bacon had been a writer he would have been Hrabal and if Hrabal had been a painter he would surely have been Bacon. Hrabal's texts on art, some of which unpublished, are the connecting thread of the exhibition.

The exhibition was inaugurated by Vittorio Sgarbi, who presented for the first time a special work of art: a monumental oil painting by the Italian apprentice of the great Velasquez, Pietro Martire Neri, (1591-1661) who copied in the mid-seventeenth century the famous portrait of Pope Innocent X at the Doria Pamphili Gallery in Rome.

Here for the first time Bacon's drawings are shown together with the portrait of Pope Innocent X by Velasquez's Italian apprentice, Pietro Martire Neri, that re-elaborates the Master's extraordinary masterpiece. This portrait by Velasquez obsessed Bacon for years and has inspired 45 oil paintings and a series of drawings that using varied techniques re-elaborate the famous papal portrait that Bacon considered to be the most important art work in the world.

Praga, Gate Gallery 18 maggio 2012 - 22 luglio 2012

San Paolo del Brasile, Museo Paço das Artes 15 giugno- 7 settembre 2014

MODIGLIANI

The great passion for Modigliani and Prague, and the curiosity, one hundred years after the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1912, of a meeting between two great artists that brought the discovery of abstract art to the world, Modigliani through his sculpture and František Kupka with his works Amorpha, Fugue in Two Colours and Warm Chromatics.

These were the major incentives that led me to undertake a major project of research, dialogue and comparisons with two different voices in order to create a unique exhibition that show-cased the indivisible link between genius and human sensibility.

Modigliani's works are from the Museum of Israel in Jerusalem, from the Estorick Collection in London, from private collections in Germany, France, the United States and Italy.

Furthermore the collaboration with the Modigliani Institute in Rome has allowed us to present for the first time in Prague original documents from the Legal Archives, through which it has been possible to narrate the life of the great artist, with original historical photographs and prints on canvas.

In his drawings, Modigliani managed to capture reality through signs and give life to an idea.  In the show there is even the very rare painting that depicts Celso Lagare - one of Modigliani's magical works: a few lines that capture the essence of the stroke.

Prague, Exhibition Hall of the Municipal House, 9 dicembre 2010 – 28 febbraio 2011