Rivoluzione Vedova

Rivoluzione Vedova

Exhibition conceived and developed by Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova
and M9 - Museum of the 20th Century

Curated by Gabriella Belli | Exhibition set-up by Studio Alvisi Kirimoto

M9 - Museum of the 20th Century
Venezia Mestre
from May 5th, 2023 until January 7, 2024

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This exhibition represents the beginning of a new path for M9 – Museum of the 20th Century. For the first time since its inauguration, indeed, M9 chooses contemporary art as a tool to explore and interpret history.

The initiative aims to launch a cycle of biennial exhibitions, dedicated to some of the protagonists of the history of art, with relevant civil commitment, who have played the role of game changers for the world of art, thanks to their innovative contributions. Emilio Vedova is definitely one of them. His work is indeed interpreter and witness of our society.

...in continuum, compenetrazioni/traslati ’87/’88 (1987-1988)

Gabriella Belli, curator

Absurdes Berliner Tagebuch ’64 (1964)

“Vedova’s topicality lies in the universal contents of his painting or, more simply, in his message. Values rooted in his essential self in dialogue with history, understood as living in the present — being “on the inside of things” — and daily engaging with its conflicts and contradictions.

History regularly punctuated his life, exerting alternately stronger and milder pressures on it, the steady basso continuo of an adventure that seamlessly united man and artist.
History as the breath and lungs of his art, marching in unison with his battles for civil rights, with his pacifism,against the ideological duplicity and the violence of dictatorships,his pressing for change, his defence of Venice, for due care of its ancient monuments, and much besides.

Vedova is a contemporary who still inspires us: in his life as in his art, he combined ethics and aesthetics, placing man at the centre of his speculations. In tune with the
infinite constellations of the universe, he revolutionised painting with his highly original approach, was recognised from the 1950s onwards by the greatest international
critics, passionately took his teaching to young people, filling them with new ideas, responsibility and hope. An artist who still poses questions today, alongside the best of our age.”

Gabriella Belli, curator

BIOGRAPHY
Born in Venice in 1919 into a family of workers and artisans, from the 1930s onwards Emilio Vedova began an intense activity as a self-taught artist. In 1942 he joined the anti-Novecento movement known as Corrente.

An anti-Fascist, he participated to the Resistance from 1944 to 1945 and in 1946, he was one of the co-signers of the “Oltre Guernica” manifesto in Milan. In the same year he was one of the founders of the Nuova Secessione Italiana followed by the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti. In 1948 he made his debut in the Venice Biennale, the first of many appearances in this event: in 1952 an entire room was devoted to his work, in 1960 he was awarded the Grand Prize for Painting and in 1997 the Golden Lion award for Lifetime Achievement.

In the early 1950s he created his celebrated cycles of works: Scontro di situazioni, ciclo della Protesta, ciclo della Natura. In 1954, at the São Paolo Art Biennial he won a prize that would allow him to spend three months in Brazil, where he encountered a hard reality that would leave its mark on him. In 1961 he designed the sets and costumes for Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza ’60; in 1984 he would work with the composer again on Prometeo.

From 1961 onwards he worked on his Plurimi, creating the Venetian series followed by works made from 1963 to 1964 in Berlin including the seven pieces forming the Absurdes Berliner Tagebuch ’64 presented at the 1964 Kassel documenta, where he showed in many occasions. From 1965 to 1967 he worked on Percorso/Plurimo/Luce for the Montreal Expo. He carried out intense teaching activities in various American universities followed by the Sommerakademie in Salzburg and the Academy of Venice. His artistic career was characterized by a constant desire to explore and innovate. In the 1970s he created the Plurimi/Binari in the Lacerazione and Carnevali cycles followed by the vast cycles of “teleri” (big canvases) and his Dischi, Tondi, Oltre and ...in continuum works.

His last solo exhibitions included the major retrospective held at Castello di Rivoli (1998) and, after his death in 2006, the shows at Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna travelled to the Berlinische Galerie and at Milan’s Palazzo Reale, inaugureted in December 2019.

The exhibition enjoys the patronage of the Regione del Veneto and the Comune di Venezia and is supported by its main sponsor, Valore Cultura, the long-term Generali Italia programme for making art and culture accessible to an increasingly wider public and for enhancing the community and the districts, and by the Gruppo SAVE, always keen to promote major cultural events.

Support was also given by Venezia Unica, AVA - Associazione Veneziana Albergatori and, as official partners, the Camera di Commercio di Venezia Rovigo and Trenitalia.