Montezuma, Fontana, Mirko. La scultura in mosaico dalle origini a oggi

For the 5th edition of RavennaMosaico, from 7th October 2017 to 7th January 2018 the MAR – Ravenna Art Museum hosts the exhibition Montezuma, Fontana, Mirko. La scultura in mosaico dalle origini a oggi. A comprehensive display on the relationship between sculpture and mosaic art to analyse and investigate the origins, evolution and the different varieties explored by artists from the 30s of the Twentieth Century.
It was in that moment, after Gino Severini‘s renewed approach towards mosaic art with architectural purposes, that the plastic researches by Lucio Fontana and Mirko Basaldella (genious artist of the Italian Novecento) took off. This virtuous creative circle was also inspired by some Mesoamerican items, thanks to the growing interest in Italy towards ancient Latin American art.
In this framework the new exhibition at the MAR shows the different expressions of 20th-21st-Century sculpture in its relationship with mosaic art, an art that became a “specific genre” in the late 70s thanks to artists such as Antonio Trotta, Athos Ongaro, Chia and Paladino, and especially thanks to technical and technological innovations resulting from new synthetic materials.
From the second half of the 80s to the present days artistic research and production have increased, paving the way for the last glimpse of the 20th Century. The phenomenon of sculpture and mosaic combined flourished, also thanks to the realisation in Ravenna of artworks of international relevance, such as Rudolf Nureyev’s tomb in Paris, featuring artists of different backgrounds that will characterise as tout court mosaic sculptors.
The language of mosaic sculpture is therefore evolving and developing in different variations of the concept of “tile” following international researches on assembly and poetics expressed by French Nouveau Realisme and British New Sculpture, and brand new original elements up to contemporary generations.
The exhibition is realised with the support of Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ravenna, Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna and Marcegaglia.
Curated by: Alfonso Panzetta, with the collaboration of Daniele Torcellini