the season of art
Bombardieri, Giannelli, Signorini, Guidi, Sabatini Odoardi, Fattori, Puccini, Simi... All the names, itineraries and artistic stimuli of the summer in Forte dei Marmi
Words Francesca Navari
Provocative, tied to tradition or even capable of arousing a sweet amarcord of memories. Forte dei Marmi proposes a summer steeped in art: just stroll through the town’s center and along the sea front to admire the exhibition “Bombardieri e altri animali” by artist Stefano Bombardieri who, until 16 July, will captivate with bold monumental sculptures of elephants, rhinos and wild animals, suspended in their bulk and capable of constantly being in a dialogue with urban spaces. The exhibition, promoted by the City and the Galleria Oblong Contemporary Art in collaboration with Villa Bertelli, ideally starts from Piazza Garibaldi with “Marta e l’elefante” and “Testa Rino”, the imposing rhino head installed on the ground; then it will wind into via Spinetti to involve viale della Repubblica and the pier. Those same spaces from 22 July to 30 September give a voice to the creativity of sculptor Antonio Signorini who, through his works, recounts the stylistic features of ancient civilizations: dancers, warriors, and horses fit into the urban environment with refined harmony and elegance.
Does he push it or hold it up? This is the question to ask when faced with the monumental six-meter sculpture that sculptor Emanuele Giannelli will place outside the Fortino from 18 July to 24 August. The itinerant giant in resin, Mr. Arbitrium, after the Arco della Pace in Milan, will also stop over in Forte dei Marmi again proposing the same dilemma: is it better to anchor yourself to history, to the classical, to tradition or to move away from it and try to free yourself from the burden of beauty?
And the Fortino itself, 110 years after his birth and 45 years after his death, will pay homage to Ugo Guidi, a great artist who with his very intense production of works put himself at the service of the medium. Until June 19, 61 works selected from his art dedicated to the subject of the Horse and Knight will be on show. From 24 June to 17 July instead “Nel cilindro del dubbio”, curated by Beatrice Audrito, offers the works of the Abruzzese artist Gino Sabatini Odoardi and his imaginative technique: polystyrene thermoforming is the definition for the procedure he uses to make most of his works, a technologically advanced “plastic” artifice with which he takes the condition for the existence of objects to extreme limits, so much so that they are completely estranged from the world they were part of, in an enigmatic and magical time-space suspension. From July 22 to November 20, it is the turn of “L’universo di Fattori”, an extraordinary both copious and of high caliber selection of Giovanni Fattori’s art, an anthology of fifty works by the undisputed master of the Macchiaioli revolution and an exceptional forerunner of 20th century modernity (it is also mentioned on page 114). Villa Bertelli also guarantees an original artistic offering. It will still be possible to admire until 31 July the Gruppo Labronico’s 72nd “Un omaggio al Club La Bohème” exhibition, dedicated to Giacomo Puccini, but also to all the many artists who gathered around him in the fertile cultural exchange of the time, characterized by great cultural ferment throughout Europe.
From 6 to 28 August, Italian style from the 1950s until today will be the protagonist of “BOOM! L’Italia rinasce con la moda”, a project of the Banca del Monte di Lucca Foundation: the rooms of Villa Bertelli become an atelier of original pieces, part of the patrimony of several prestigious Italian fashion archives and also of private collections. Clothes, period accessories, paper documents and photographs, as well as films that reflect the years of the economic boom. From 4 until 30 September, on the first floor of the villa, there will be the “Neko Project” exhibition, a series of shots by Japanese photographers who have cats as their subject, while the second floor hosts, from 3 to 30 September, “Studio Simi 1881/1987 tra Versilia and Firenze: la sua eredità nel mondo”, a tribute to painters Filadelfo and Nerina Simi.
