Fortunato Depero and Gilbert Clavel
Futurism = Experimentation
Artopoli
The exhibition is in the vein of 20th-century masters, proposing a lunge on the creative collaboration between Swiss scholar Gilbert Clavel and Rovereto futurist Fortunato Depero: in particular, their contribution is examined in the context of the artistic colony formed in Capri and Anacapri starting in the 1515s called "Artopoli," which was actively frequented by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Benedetta Cappa, Enrico Prampolini, Francesco Cangiullo, Julius Evola, and for a brief period even Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, not to mention Michele Semenov, Sergej Djaghilev and the dancer Léonide Massine.
The exhibition focuses on Depero's pictorial and intellectual research, starting with the illustrations he made for Clavel and then arriving at the pinnacle of theatrical experimentation that resulted in the Balli Plastici. Fortunato Depero (Fondo, March 30, 1892 - Rovereto, Nov. 29, 1960) is one of the great protagonists of Futurism.
Painter, illustrator, set and costume designer, he worked to bring to life a language of experimentation, poetic and abstract. In 1917 he met the scholar Gilbert Clavel (Kleinhüningen, May 29, 1883 - Basel, Sept. 6, 1927) in Rome, with whom he formed - first in Anacapri and then in Positano - a fraternal friendship evidenced by numerous letters, documents and portraits, and resulting in the creation of innovative projects.
Central turns out to be Depero's relationship with the Torre Fornillo, an evocative building owned by Clavel, a place of art, poetry and experimentation. From the studies for costumes and sets made for Le chant du rossignol with music by Igor Stravinsky and commissioned by Sergei Djaghilev, the lives of Fortunato Depero and Gilbert Clavel become further intertwined: in fact, the eclectic Swiss scholar commissioned the artist to create the illustrations for the novella Un istituto per suicidi.
In 1917, their collaboration gave rise to the Balli Plastici, which featured the artistic participation of several well-known musicians of the time, such as Alfredo Casella, Gerald Tyrwhitt, Francesco Malipiero, and Bela Bartòk (who signed under the pseudonym Chemenov).
The rooms of the m.a.x. museum will display more than ninety works including sketches, studies, sketches, paintings and wooden puppets, tapestries, a maquette, vintage photographs and letters (some of them unpublished) that highlight the intense relationship between Clavel's aesthetic conception and the artistic contribution of Depero's work.
The exhibition is held in collaboration with the Mart Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto and boasts synergy with prestigious lending institutions, including the Basel State Archives, the Clavel Foundation in Basel and the Hercolani Collection in Rome; loans from valuable private collections are also essential.
OPENING:
Mon: Closed / Closed / Fermé / Geschlossen
Tue... Sun: 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. / 2 p.m. - 6 p.m.
More information
m.a.x. museum
Via Dante Alighieri 4
6830 Chiasso
Phone: +41 58 122 42 52
E-mail:info@maxmuseo.ch / centroculturalechiasso.ch