Architecture photographs and drawings from the Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy

MACHINES FOR LIVING. ARCHITECTURE PHOTOGRAPHS AND DRAWINGS FROM THE GALLERIA CIVICA DI MODENA COLLECTION
Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy
Through 26 January 2014 

MARYLIN BRIDGES

Chrysler Building, N.Y, 1988

Raccolta della fotografia, Galleria civica di Modena

© Marilyn Bridges

The Galleria civica di Modena in Italy presents around 100 works, including paper-based drawings and (often Utopian) architectural projects, along with images of finished architecture as represented by the photographic medium. The exhibition was created entirely using materials to be found in the Gallery’s own collections. 

Studies of single buildings along with urban visions have been selected from the Gallery’s heritage so as to offer an overview of some of the most important representatives of contemporary architecture and its various interpretations by photographers from around the world. 

ANDRE KERTESZ

Puddle, New York, 1967

Raccolta della fotografia, Galleria civica di Modena

© Estate of André Kertész

The drawings (more than 80 works) include sheets by great 20th-century architects such as Carlo Aymonino, Andrea Branzi, Guido Canella, Paolo Portoghesi and Aldo Rossi, as well as figures bound in particular to the Emilian territory, such as Cesare Leonardi (7 unreleased works) and Tullio Zini, to whom two special sections of the exhibition are dedicated, further enhanced by recent donations. Furthermore, great space is also given over to the major Ico Parisi drawing set, from which sketches for three major architectural projects have been taken: 10 sheets from the series ‘I grattacieli’, preparatory studies for the façade of the Guggenheim Museum in Venice and for the town-planning project “Operazione Arcevia”.

Glimpses of the city or of single buildings are the subjects featured in the photographs from the Photography Collection: more than 40 works by a range of different authors, not all of whom dedicate their attention entirely to architecture. Along with the ‘specialists’, there are in fact photographers who address their images simply as an ‘everyday space’, setting up a dialogue and interpreting it from new points of view. 

FRANCO FONTANA

Los Angeles, 1990

Raccolta della fotografia, Galleria civica di Modena

© Franco Fontana

LUIGI GHIRRI

Il cimitero di Modena, 1983

Raccolta della fotografia, Galleria civica di Modena

© Eredi Luigi Ghirri

The exhibition include shots by italian photographers Franco Fontana, Luigi Ghirri, Olivo Barbieri, Mimmo Jodice, the duo Andreoni-Fortugno, Marco Zanta, the architects Paolo Portoghesi and Ico Parisi. On the international side works by André Kertész, Marylin Bridges, Lewis Baltz, Reinhart Wolf, Naoya Hatakeyama and Jun Shiraoka are exhibited. 

The exhibition also feature the projection of 400 shots taken from the photographic census of the historic town centre of Modena commissioned from Paolo Monti in 1973, heritage of the Library of civic art and architecture "Luigi Poletti" in Modena. 

The exhibition is curated by Francesca Mora and Gabriella Roganti, promoted and organised by the Galleria civica di Modena and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, with support from the Culture Councillorship of the Emilia-Romagna Regional Council.

Galleria Civica di Modena
Palazzina dei Giardini, corso Canalgrande, Modena, Italy
www.comune.modena.it 

Photographs and Drawings from the Galleria Civica Modena Collections

THE GALLERIA CIVICA DI MODENA COLLECTION: PHOTOGRAPHS AND DRAWINGS FROM THE COLLECTIONS

3 April - 17 July 2011 

Davide Tranchina, Gorilla, 2000, 

from the series “Safari metropolitano” (Metropolitan Safari)

Donated to the Galleria Civica di Modena Photography Collection. 

Courtesy of the Galleria Civica di Modena.

On Saturday 2nd April 2011 at 6pm the Galleria Civica di Modena will inaugurate a long-term project aimed at displaying the photographs and drawings of the permanent collections in turn and on a regular basis. Until the 17th July the Sala grande and the Sale superiori of the Palazzo will in fact feature the first display of the collections, organised and co-produced by the Galleria Civica di Modena and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena. 

The Sala grande will host a selection of photographs showing broad views and tiny glimpses of Modena captured throughout the second half of the 20th century by great photographers such as Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Luigi Ghirri and Mimmo Jodice. A number of works from a set of 50 images (part of a major photo shoot on the city in 2009) donated by Jodice to the Galleria Civica di Modena Collection will also be presented here for the first time.

The exhibition then continues with a selection from the 1200 black & white images (which also only recently became part of the Collection), part of Franco Vaccari’s project “C’ero anch’io”, presented on the occasion of the solo exhibition dedicated to the artist in 2007, held between the Palazzina dei Giardini and the Fotomuseo Giuseppe Panini. Among the artists chosen for this show there is also Franco Fontana, the donator of the main corpus of the Collection itself, and who on this particular occasion has donated four of his own personal visions of 1970’s Modena.

From the series “Safari Metropolitano”, (1998-2000), Davide Tranchina has picked out three images that offer an estranging and at the same time ironic vision of the urban outskirts, to be donated to the Gallery.

In the Sale superiori, works on paper by Modenese artists will be displayed, artists whose careers are documented within the Drawing Collection, from the early 20th century right up to the present day. The entrance chamber hosts works in the collection by artists such as Davide Benati, Carlo Cremaschi, Giuliano Della Casa, Franco Guerzoni, Giovanni Manfredini, Wainer Vaccari, right up to Andrea Chiesi and Roberto Cuoghi. The second room, instead, is dedicated to artistic figures who have acquired a historic standing, such as Nereo Annovi, Vittorio Magelli, Mario Molinari, Tino Pelloni, Enrico Prampolini, Pompeo Vecchiati and Mario Venturelli. 

The last two spaces will be given over to Lucio Riva and Gianni Valbonesi, to whom a tribute will be paid – thanks to the heritage of the Collection and the new purchases – in the light of the thorough and coherent artistic activity which he has carried out over the course of the last half century.

GALLERIA CIVICA DI MODENA

La collezione della Galleria Civica di Modena: fotografie e disegni dalle Raccolte 

Palazzo Santa Margherita 

Corso Canalgrande 103 

41121 Modena 

www.galleriacivicadimodena.it 

Angelica Porrari, Nude Rovine Exhibition in Modena, Italy

Area Progetto Off, Galleria Civica, Modena, Italy  
Angelica Porrari, Nude Rovine
Antonio Delfini Library, Modena
4 December 2010 - 6 March 2011

 

ANGELICA PORRARI, NUDE ROVINE, 2010, (detail from the installation). Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Civica, Modena

 

An installation by artist Angelica Porrari will be inaugurated on Saturday 4th December at 6pm at the Delfini Library in Modena (Italy). The vernissage of this exhibition marks the begining of the new Area Progetto season – an event dedicated to young emerging creativity promoted by the Galleria Civica di Modena in collaboration with the Ufficio Giovani d'Arte of Modena City Council – curated by Silvia Ferrari, Serena Goldoni and Ornella Corradini.

Now at its third edition, the initiative this time changes formula, taking the creativity of young local artists into spaces external to the Galleria Civica, through the creation of projects designed especially for key sites around the town centre, such as the marketplace in via Albinelli or the public gardens. Yet the first stage is the Delfini Library, based in Palazzo Santa Margherita, the historic building which is also home to the Galleria Civica itself.  A selection of artists from the Archivio di Documentazione Giovani Artisti Modenesi – chosen on the basis of the quality and continuity of their work – were asked to plan a site-specific work which would dialogue with the large and articulate spaces of the library rooms.

The winning project was that proposed by the Modenese videomaker Angelica Porrari. The artist turned her attention to the fragments of frescoes still found in the lunettes of the room used as the children’s library, giving her own interpretation of the subjects, their actions and gestures. Through the use of an original linguistic code, she created a bridge between the ancient and the contemporary, through a space/time shift that the artist also grasped in the evolution of the library itself.

The project, entitled Nude Rovine, will consist of a video and a series of photographs, the result of her reappraisal of the frescoed images, the same shape and size as the ancient lunettes, installed in a space of the same dimensions inside the various vaults of the library ceiling, providing a kind of counterpoint to the originals.

The work proposed is part of the artist’s Gloves' Stories, a broader project which came to light in 2006 and which brings together Angelica Porrari’s entire video production, which focuses on the theme of the glove: an object which speaks of the relationship between the body – the female body in particular – and the outside world.

ANGELICA PORRARI BIOGRAPHY

Angelica Porrari was born in 1985 in Modena, where she lives and works. Her research is developed largely through the use of video while being strongly influenced by performance and theatre. She gained a diploma in Advertising Graphics at the Istituto d'Arte of Modena and then a degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Art of Bologna. In 2009 she came in for special mention at the Special competition (promoted by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio of Modena), going on to win the section of the competition dedicated to artists from Emilia Romagna in 2010. Angelica Porrari has taken part in a range of group shows, including: Finalisti Premio Celeste, ISA, Rome (2007); Videoart Yearbook 2008, ex Convent of Santa Cristina, Bologna; Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea, Trento; Festival d'Images Artistiques Video, Ecole des Beaux Art, Algiers (2008); Diari di Anatomia, Gemine Muse, Musei Anatomici, Modena; Biennale dei Giovani Artisti dell'Europa e del Mediterraneo, Skopje, Macedonia (2009); The Scientist, festival di videoarte internazionale, Ferrara (2010).

The project is accompanied by an exhibition brochure with a critical text by Serena Goldoni and colour images of the work.

Angelica Porrari’s installation has been realised in collaboration with the Libraries Service of Modena City Council. The exhibition is open to the public on Mondays from 2pm to 8pm and from Tuesday to Saturday from 9am to 8pm.

ANTONIO DELFINI LIBRARY
Palazzo Santa Margherita
corso Canalgrande 103
41121 Modena, Italy

GALLERIA CIVICA of MODENA

www.galleriacivicadimodena.it