ALDO MONDINO STORIES FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN

17 SEPTEMBER – 13 NOVEMBER 2022
INAUGURATION: 17 SEPTEMBER at 6 pm

On Saturday, 17 September at 6 pm La Crescentina - Laboratorio per l’Arte will open to the public for the inauguration of the exhibition ALDO MONDINO – STORIES FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN, created in collaboration with Archivio Aldo Mondino and sponsored by the Municipal Council of Fubine Monferrato.

The exhibition, arranged as a parcours covering all the exhibition spaces of the Crescentina, represents a sort of narration of the artist’s return to the hills of Monferrato, where he lived, from the second half of the 1980s until 2005, the year of his death, in a farmhouse set in the countryside hamlet of Casazze, near the small town of Altavilla Monferrato. Through a selection of works, chosen in collaboration with the Aldo Mondino Archive, representing the artist’s passion for travel and the cultural fusions that inspired him on his journeys through the Mediterranean, from Morocco to Palestine to Turkey, the exhibition marks out a path characterised by the eastern influences subtly underlying the aesthetic revival of the artistic practice in a period profoundly affected by the vulnerability of painting as a theoretical and cognitive tool.
In Aldo Mondino's works, the surface of the painting is often three-dimensional, while, vice versa, the poly-materiality of his works necessarily incorporates the pictorial qualities expressed by a palette, or by the meticulous care taken in arranging the colours of the elements. Among the works on display, Raccolto in preghiera (1986), a carpet made of grains, legumes and flour, and Tappeti stesi (1993) are displayed in the room on the first floor, and lead to the large quadriptych entitled Festa Araba, which the artist painted on linoleum in 1985.
Measuring a total of 190 cm x 560 cm, this impressive work dominates the main wall of the room, creating the atmosphere of a setting inhabited by caliphs, dervishes and dancers, who usher in the viewers and direct them towards the window overlooking the grounds outside and the radiant presence of the swimming pool, on the bottom of which is a mosaic-carpet created by Aldo Mondino in 1988 to celebrate the decades-long friendship between the artist and the architect Alessandro Monteforte, who at the time was working on the renovation of the Crescentina.
‘Woven’ with a mosaic of Bisazza glass, the pool carpet lies under the water, constantly reflecting the natural colours that surround the house: shades of yellow, ochre, brown and blue which in September echo those of the sky and the wheat fields that extend beyond the hedge encircling the Crescentina, blending the beauty of Monferrato with poetic moods of the East.
The exhibition parcours is further enriched with the addition of a series of prestigious sculptures, including Viola d’Amore (1985) and Gerusalemme, sculpted in 1988, through which Mondino rediscovers his family’s Jewish roots.

The exhibition will be open to the public from 17 September to 13 November 2022.
From 18 September it will be possible to visit to the exhibition by reservation and on the scheduled visiting days.

Inauguration: Saturday, 17 September at 6 pm | R.S.V.P.info@lacrescentina.com
For info and contact: info@lacrescentina.com| mobile: + 39 393 3918764