“An Unexpected Collection”: a surprising journey into 20th century art

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There are exhibitions and then there is “An Unexpected Collection. Journey into the contemporary between painting and sculpture”, which is much more than a simple exhibition, but a contemplative journey. It is an Unexpected Collection because it combines various pictorial styles dating back to the “short” century and artistically very flourishing, and which presents a selection of about seventy works, ranging from the beginning of the 20th century to the 1980s.

Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, it is a temporary exhibition itinerary that delves into unpublished aspects of authors of the 20th and 21st century collections – international and otherwise – belonging to the Intesa Sanpaolo Group, including the Peppino and Luigi Agrati collection. Works never before compared and therefore endowed with a particularity sui generis. Already in the first room the sculpture comes to life, with a sinuous and feminine work in white marble entitled “Femme Paysage” by Jean Hans Arp (1966), to represent the large collection of the Henraux Collection, also owned by Intesa Sanpaolo.

Bruno De Toffoli

The sculpture of the great French master is surrounded by a very rare nucleus of sculptural works by the spatialist Bruno De Toffoli. A targeted, thoughtful and successful dialogue between different stylistic researches: this is the case of the winning triad of great Italian masters such as Arturo Martini, Marino Marini and Giacomo Manzù, placed in adjacent rooms. An emblematic work by Martini, inventor of a plastic language and bearer of an ancient vision in the contemporary world, is “La Pisana” (1930). Classic sculpture, Pisana’s body is soft, feminine and seductive, at times almost landscaped. His “Natura Morta” from 1920-1925 is also splendid. In the next room, Marini reveals mythological echoes with his “Pomona” (1945), recalling the myth of Vertumnus and Pomona both of Etruscan origin and taken from Ovid in his “Metamorphoses”. She is a figure who sensually embodies the symbol of fertility, the seasons and beauty. Finally Manzù, who with his medieval sculpture represents the “Cardinal” of 1938. The drapery of the sculpture is essential, the face of the Cardinal austere – almost methodical – and the voluminous shape of the robes takes on abstract features, thanks to his ancestry.

Fausto Melotti and Lucio Fontana

The Unexpected part of the exhibition is revealed with the meeting between two artists, old friends: Fausto Melotti and Lucio Fontana (with his “Attese”, in fact). The first presents a totally new corpus composed of 19 representative works of his ceramic vases including four important “Korai” and two works in copper wire. The mythological “Korai”, in particular, are queens of the hall as in a sort of metaphysical theatre, standing out for their style and size, together with the extraordinary zoomorphic and phytoform vases. Next door, an immense room pays homage to the father of spatialism, Lucio Fontana. At first glance one is attracted by these twelve cuts on a fiery red background, burning expectations of passionate and reciprocated moments. One part of the room is therefore linked to his great experiments with spatial concepts such as holes and cuts, while the other has Baroque dishes – made in Albisola – made up of fantastic and surreal figures, such as the ceramic “Fenice” dated 1953. In the same part of the room, three large sublime natures interact, positioned in the centre, which almost look like asteroids of alien origin, as if one were looking for a science fiction answer to the origin of the Universe, simply by observing the sky. A space is also dedicated to Pietro Consagra, with a splendid sculpture entirely in green malachite, a refined research work carried out by the artist with stones and marbles in the 1970s and 1980s. Another room has Monochrome as its theme in international contemporary art of the 1960s, the pivot of which is the sculpture “Complex Form” by Sol LeWitt, which recently entered the Intesa Sanpaolo Collection. Also present were Italian artists of the caliber of Piero Manzoni with his 1958 “Achrome” exhibit and a magnificent Alberto Burri with “Bianco Cretto”, dated 1974, composed of pure and luminous white material, which alludes to the strength of the earth and crumbles with the dramas of life. Finally, the space dedicated to the innovative proposals linked to the abstraction of the 1950s by artists such as Carla Accardi and Giulio Turcato is interesting.

“An Unexpected Collection. Journey into the contemporary between painting and sculpture”, Milan, Gallerie d’Italia, until 22 October 2023