Gino Severini. The Dance
1909 - 1916
Peggy Guggenheim Collection - Venice
25 May – 28 October 2001
The presence of two
masterpieces by Italian Futurist Gino Severini at the Peggy Guggenheim
Collection, The Blue Dancer (1912) and Sea = Dancer (January 1914), provoked the
theme of this exhibition, which will bring together approximately fifty of the
most colorful, joyful and advanced paintings, with related works on paper, of
the Italian Avant-Garde of the early 20th century.
The exhibition is being
organized by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Solomon R.Guggenheim Foundation)
for the summer of 2001 and it has already secured major loans from the Museum of
Modern Art, the Agnelli Collection, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, and other important international private and public
collections. The curator is Daniela Fonti, a leading expert on Severini and
author of the artist's catalogue raisonnè.
Between 1910 and 1915 Severini
was a central figure of Italian Futurism - a movement that celebrated modern
life by giving expression to pictorial and sculptural movement, speed, dynamism
and above all contemporary philosophical theories about sensory perception in
the new urban and industrial anvironments of the early 20th century. As a
resident of Paris from 1906, he served as an intermediary between his Futurist
colleagues in Italy and his friends among the Parisian avant-garde, dominated at
this time by Cubism.
The theme of the Dance above
all others inspired the experimental imagination of Severini during his Futurist
period. Inherited from the imagery of the fin de siècle, the Dance became for
him an icon of modernity (as a receptacle for the manifold influences of
Symbolist literature and as a mirror for the spectacle of contemporary life). It
served as a metaphor for the exploration of new forms of the physical and
psychological involvement of the spectator. From the first works, recalling the
world of the Parisian cabaret (Le Chat Noir, Le Bal Tabarin, Pigalle, Monico),
through cycles dedicated to fashionable dances (the Argentine Tango, the Bear
Dance), the theme progressively abandoned any descriptive reference and moved
towards a pure, musical rhythm.
At the end of 1914, Severini
enriched the theme with the profundity implicit in abstract form, thus alluding
to cosmic movement and conveying the "Orphic" theme of the glorification of
light.
In the final works, that
foreshadow a return to Cubist discipline, Severini provided the definitive
confirmation that for him the theme of the dance was at once a subject, a model
for stylistic exercise, and a system for interpreting the world.
The exhibition will be
enriched by the presence of a small number of sculptures, paintings, drawings
and photographs on the theme of the Dance by Severini's contemporaries, such as
Sironi, Balla, Gaudier-Brzeska, Depero, and van Doesburg. An audio-visual
section will present early 20th century footage of the ambience, the songs and
the dance rhytms of the Parisian cafés dansantes and cabarets.
DANIELA FONTI, art historian, teaches at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Rome, and has published the catalogue
raisonné of Severini's paintings (Mondadori-Daverio, Milan, 1988).
GINO SEVERINI - Sea = Dancer (1914)
GINO SEVERINI - Blue Dancer (1912)
GINO SEVERINI - Dancer + Sea (1913)
Info Mostra
Gino Severini. The Dance 1909 - 1916
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
701 Dorsoduro
30123 Venice
Italy
Phone 0412405411
Fax: 0415206885
Philip Rylands, Deputy Director 0412405421
e-mail: prylands@tin.it
Catalogo edito da Edizioni Skira, Via Torino 61 - 20123 Milano
Tel.: 02724441- fax: 0272444219 - e-mail: skira@skira.net