Autumn at the Museo Novecento. Meetings and conferences

From 8 October, for three Wednesdays, a series of meetings on Picasso and Italy in collaboration with Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi; from 29 October, throughout the month of November, at the start of the cycle The secrets of the artist, to discover and know the works of the Civic Collections with scholars and restorers. The series of meetings are curated by Valentina Gensini.

In addition to the two cycles, there will be other events dedicated to the study of issues related to the art of the twentieth century, the works of the Museum, and the municipal collections. All meetings, with free admission subject to availability, will be held in the spaces of the altana (last level of the Museum).

Series of meetings Picasso and Italy

In collaboration with Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi 

Wednesday, October 8 at 17.30: Maria Grazia Messina  – Picasso and cubism: an open question. There are many interpretations of cubism, and of Picasso’s work in particular. The conference aims to bring attention to the visual culture of Picasso, on the horizon of suggestion, between goods, advertising, photography, in place in Paris of the first decade of the ‘900. The media revolution, the multiform network of new modes of urban communication, triggers different modes of perception and consequently innovative working processes. But Picasso turns mass media devices to an otherwise elite reflection on the ways and codes of visual representation.

Wednesday, October 15 at 17.30: Caterina Zappia – Picasso and the Italians: the suggestion of the old masters and the relationships with contemporary artists. The relations between the Spanish master and our country, which he visited twice, are more intense than you think: these links are attested both by the lesson that ancient and contemporary Italian art exerted on his work and by the large series of letters that intellectual, politicians and artists sent him between 1905 and 1965.

Wednesday, October 22 at 17.30: Eva Francioli – In the footsteps of Picasso. Travelling conference to the collections of the Museo Novecento. To what extent did Picasso’s work influence 20th century Italian art? What are the themes, iconography, technical and linguistic experiments? The itinerant conference, held among the collections of the Museo Novecento, offers itself as a starting point for reflection on the permanence, variations and excesses of the Picassian models, starting from a direct and open comparison with the works of some of the main Italian artists of the last century.

Series of meetings The artist’s secrets

Wednesday, October 29 at 17:30: Davide Lacagnina – The Pirandello case: the times of history, the times of art. With a special exhibition of the work I tondi, by Fausto Pirandello. The meeting will be dedicated to the painting “I tondi” by Fausto Pirandello, donated by the artist to the City of Florence in 1967: a key work of the painter’s training in Paris, between the twenties and thirties. The research carried out on the occasion of the organization of the Museo Novecento has called into question the chronology of the work, traditionally assigned to 1929. As is customary in the catalog of Pirandello as well as those of many other artists of his generation, it is actually a remake of the second half of the twentieth century: it is the return to a theme dear to the artist, of which there are other examples, even with variants, which is configured as the attempt to rebuild à rebours a creative biography, fixing moments and reasons for a poetic journey, in which the times of history do not always coincide with those of art.

The cycle will continue throughout the month of November (every Wednesday at 17.30) with itinerant visits and meetings with restorers.

The other meetings:

October 1 at 17.30: Conference by Mario Ruffini – Giovanni Colacicchi and music. With the screening of the documentary by Clemente Fiorentini Giovanni Colacicchi and Flavia Arlotta: family chronicle and artist’s life. The meeting is part of a cycle promoted by Fondazione Parchi Monumentali Bardini Peyron connected to the monographic exhibition Giovanni Colacicchi. Figures of rhythm and music in the ‘900 Florence that will be present in the beautiful premises of Villa Bardini until next October 19.

October 21 at 17.30: Presentation of the book When the World Answered – Le artiste e l’alluvione edited by Linda Falcone and Jane Fortune. In collaboration with Advancing Women Artists Foundation)