Aldo Mondino. Moderno, postmoderno, contemporaneo
from 24 September 2016 to 08 January 2017
Genova
Aldo Mondino. Moderno, postmoderno, contemporaneo
Eleven years after the death of Aldo Mondino (Turin, 1938–2005), the Villa Croce Museum, in collaboration with the Aldo Mondino Archive and Palazzo della Meridiana, presents: Aldo Mondino. Modern, Postmodern, Contemporary.
Curated by Ilaria Bonacossa, the exhibition is spread across two venues, presenting the painterly, sculptural and environmental output of forty years of artistic exploration which, due to their formal and conceptual qualities, appear to be the result of multiple artistic personalities. This major retrospective aims to showcase the qualities of this Piedmontese artist’s multifaceted output, enabling the international art world to appreciate its significance.
Curated by Ilaria Bonacossa, the exhibition is spread across two venues, presenting the painterly, sculptural and environmental output of forty years of artistic exploration which, due to their formal and conceptual qualities, appear to be the result of multiple artistic personalities. This major retrospective aims to showcase the qualities of this Piedmontese artist’s multifaceted output, enabling the international art world to appreciate its significance.
One of the most eclectic artists of his generation, Aldo Mondino is the most significant representative of Italian Post-Modern poetics. Through his work, he has reappropriated the stylistic and formal explorations of the artistic avant-garde, simultaneously referencing and playfully engaging with the works of his contemporaries.
The references in his works range from Surrealism to Dadaist experiments, from Pop to Conceptual art, even going so far as to reference and subvert the works of great masters such as Casorati, Degas, Picasso, Giacometti and Capogrossi. Mondino practises everything and its opposite, mixing techniques, materials and genres, changing the way we see things and their function (exemplary are the carpets painted on Eraclite).
From the early 1980s onwards, he has created chocolate sculptures, paintings on linoleum, marshmallow mosaics, carpets of coffee and grains, chandeliers made of Bic pens, as well as sculptures in bronze, glass, ceramics and wood. Everything is a source of inspiration for Mondino, from primers to art classics, from the Palio di Siena to religious and mystical traditions.
One is struck by how his work can be playful and childlike, passionate and emotional, introspective and dramatic, yet always irreverent and ironic.
A friend of Armando Testa, who would have liked to encourage him to become an advertising executive, he developed an unprecedented relationship between words and images, transforming his titles into catalysts of meaning, which, through irreverent wordplay, subvert the interpretation of his works.
The second half of his life was marked by an unstoppable need to lose his sense of self. This form of escapism from an Italy swept up in the economic boom and torn apart by class struggles manifested itself, as in his friend and fellow researcher Alighiero Boetti, in mystical quests, alcohol and women, but above all in long stays in exotic locations (Turkey, Morocco or India), where he found the subjects for his paintings.
The Villa Croce Museum presents Aldo Mondino’s early work, focusing on the artist’s extraordinary environmental installations, his Pop-inspired works (presented at the 1964 Venice Biennale) and pieces created using chocolate and sweets in response to the Arte Povera movement.
Palazzo della Meridiana, meanwhile, presents major series of paintings from his later period, works inspired by his travels in the Mediterranean basin, including pieces such as the ‘dervishes’ which, captured in their mystical whirling, earned him numerous accolades and a monographic pavilion at the 1993 Venice Biennale.
The exhibition is further enriched by six monumental installations set up in some of Genoa’s most important museums, unfolding as a surprising journey in which nothing is as it seems and in which the city’s grand history is reinterpreted through this artist’s irreverent irony.
Aldo Mondino. Modern, Postmodern, Contemporary, becomes a treasure hunt that, starting from the neoclassical halls of Villa Croce, leads us to discover the medieval Casa di Colombo, astonishing us with the superb grandeur of Palazzo Ducale, before entering the ballrooms of the famous palaces on Strada Nuova; after offering us a view of the sea from the terraces of Palazzo Reale, it immerses us underwater in the halls of the Aquarium, guiding us to the marvellous Art Nouveau atrium of Palazzo della Meridiana.
Genoa
Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art and Palazzo della Meridiana
Installations at Palazzo Ducale / Palazzo Rosso / Palazzo Bianco / Palazzo Reale / Casa di Colombo / Genoa Aquarium
Opere correlate
Nessuna opera correlata trovata