Until the 12^th of June, the Palazzo Reale in Milan presents the exhibition Alberto Savinio. The Comedy of Art dedicated to the poetic world of the Italian painter. The exhibition is organized around four main themes: painting, myth, comedy and theater, is curated by Vicenio Trione and consists of 100 art pieces that pay a deserved tribute to the eclectic work of Savinio.

Andrea Francesco Alberto de Chirico, better known as Alberto Savinio, was born in Athens, Greece in 1891. Son of Italian parents, from his youth, he had a special talent for art and critical thinking influenced by the admiration of classical Greek culture, that had developed by reading Greek philosophers. At the age of 12 he graduated from the Athens Conservatory of Music in piano and musical composition. Two years after the death of his father, he made his first composition, a Requiem in his father’s memory.

Due to the death of his father, he returned with his family to Italy and then moved to Munich. City in which he devoted himself to further training in music and composed Carmela, his first opera in three acts, which was praised by critics.

In 1911 he moved to Paris, the center of the artistic vanguard and the major theoretical debates of the time. There he joined Avant Garde and immediately established friendship with the influential writer and poet, Guillaume Apollinaire. Just as with well-known writers and artists such as Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob.

Curious and creative, he came in contact with theatrical arts and ventured into the pantomime, because he considered it a complex and complete expression of performing arts. During those years he adopted the pseudonym of Alberto Savinio to make a difference with his brother Giorgio de Chirico. Savinio founded the musical movement Sincerismo (Sincerism), which basically abandoned polyphony and harmony to focus in rhythm and musical dissonance.

Although his musical production had great success, he ventured into poetry by joining the surrealist movement. Les Chant of la mi-mort was considered a foundational work of the surrealist poetry. In the 20′s he wrote his novel Tragedy of Childhood and The Haunted House, while started working in theater by writing plays with enormous success. In 1926 he returned to Paris and began painting, next year after that, had his first exhibition at Bernheim, which was presented by Cocteau. Theoretical debates and political convulsions of the time kept him away from Paris and the Surrealists, despite that, he continued to maintain friendly relations with André Breton and some other surrealists.

In 1933 he returned to Italy and devoted himself to writing, to theater and to journalism in the magazines Broletto and Colonna. He also devoted part of his time to graphic work.

Savinio was a renaissance man of the twentieth century; he worked with passion in all arts and lived the passion of a time of theoretical changes.

He died in 1952 after making his last job of staging La Opera Armida by Gioachino Rossini.

For more information http://www.mostrasavinio.it/

Nancy Guzman

If you’re resting in apartments in Milan you have to visit the exhibition La Comedia del Arte, surely you’re going to approach a life dedicated to the creation and beauty.

Contact Me 

Translated by: Hans
Contact Me

From where do we get the idea that fashion is frivolous? When was this idea imposed to us? The truth is, that along with the contemporary art evolution of the last thirty or more years, graphic designers, architects, decorators and, of course, fashion designers have been willing to take risks and venture into “the conceptual”: the idea over the object. And the results are clearly the most interesting, especially in the visual media like: Internet, television and magazines. The Fondazione Prada in Milan, founded of course by the Italian fashion label Prada, was created in the nineties in order to encourage interaction between art, fashion, architecture and design. In addition to various publications and activities, the Fondazione presents innovative exhibitions of contemporary art as: “Ex Limbo”.

This, exhibition presents materials that are commonly used in fashion shows but in a different way; from their useless or obsolete condition. The starting point of this project is the curiosity about the materials used; the reasons for which they have been preserved and how they have been used in practice. The Rotor’s work is to draw attention concerning the waste of our world, which after a significant splendor has been pushed aside and left in limbo, inviting people to have a second look at this forgotten fact. Fogazzaro exhibition space of Fondazione Prada presents a maze of elements that shows all the job included in the production of fashion shows.

The forms, presented in this exhibition, reveal structures and effects, as well as movement of materials that reject the definition of “things” like: “waste” or “rubbish”, shown as forms of knowledge through the sensory. Bordering the archeology of recent fashion world. This archeology from season to season shows industrial and architectural ruins that retain the essence of the style of what happened on the staging, giving us the opportunity to evaluate the chaotic, ruined, degraded and how lapses and re-emerges as a conceptual “Duchamp” gesture, in the world of design and architecture. Imagine a new Milan fashion geography locked in a gallery: wood, metal frames, mirrors and walls, polyethylene seats; waste conceptual of the fashion production.

About Rotor, I can tell you that this group was founded in 2005 in Brussels. Its members are Tristan Boniver, Lionel Devlieger, Maarten Gielen, Michael Ghyoot, Benjamin Lasserre and Melanie Tamm. Their main interest of conceptual work is focused on industrial materials and construction. On a practical level, Rotor is dedicated to the conceptualization and design of architectural projects. For more information, visit the website of Rotor http://rotordb.org/ and, of course, the website of the Fondazione Prada, Milan http://www.fondazioneprada.org/

SISTER RAY

What you should do is to get apartments in Milan and see this show by yourself. It will surely change your perspective about fashion and architecture, and show you how any building material always has a story that touches us all.

Contact Me 

Translated by: Hans
Contact Me

I am increasingly beginning to believe that the true vanguard is in the breaking of sexual gender – the deconstruction of the moral norms, and the manipulation of the body as an agent of political ends. The diffusion of these expressions is crucial if we are to acknowledge that these are times which need change. The margin between the masculine and the feminine changes at the pace of a tortoise, or so it sometimes seems. Lesbian and gay art has been with us since the beginning of time – I don’t understand why we are still having problems.

It’s not the case in Milan at least. Since 1985, Festival Mix Milan has been the only event in Milan for the public promotion of gay and lesbian cinema, becoming one of the most-attended events in Italy. The 2010 edition was an all round success – eight days of screenings and events, with electronic music, for which over 20,000 people participated. The festival is gaining more and more of a media presence – radio, television, the web and press are all covering the event, attracting the attention of specialists, journalists and professionals alike.

As well as the projections during the festival, there are open electronic music events, and book and magazine events and discussion panels. The festival covers feature lengths, shorts and documentary; both Italian and international. You only need to glance at the previous programmes to see how multicultural the project is, and how unafraid it is to “come out of the closet” in order to represent itself the best it can. Occasionally, where I live you can sense the horror towards the gay community and it’s just exasperating – intolerance is an ancient joke.

Milan is in full swing of Spring as the festival takes place, which is perfect for going out into the street between films and concerts and having some fun. People have always spoken to me about the hassles of Milan, the character of the people, its streets – but don’t believe a word of what people tell you. Obviously, it is Italy’s fashion capital – and don’t expect anything less. But like any metropolis, it is multicultural and full of life – maybe not as much as London, but you’ll find all kinds of people, guaranteed. The festival is at the Strehler del Piccolo Theatre in Milan. The official is currently down but check out the Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81469351021&v=wall

SISTER RAY

Get hold of apartments in Milan and be a part of this festival – there’s no better way to get involved with the gay community than through art. Learn about how limiting it is to be categorised according to sexuality – this is 2011, and life’s changing – especially in Milan.

Contact Me 

Translated by: Poppy
Contact Me

From the 12th until the 15th of May, Milan will be host to the first edition of MIA; the “Milan Image Art Fair,” – an event solely dedicated to photography and video art, curated by Fabio Castelli. Is this just another art fair like so many others, which seem to favour quantity over quality? In the face of so many cultural offerings (or so-called) organised in Milan each year, MIA promises to be something different – and the hope is that it will keep its promise.

As the event organisers assert, the spectator won’t be made to wander aimlessly amongst the crowds, because at this fair, each stand will be an independent exhibition in its own right – by one particular chosen artist. Nothing like a “bazaar” then, or the random piling of artworks into a small space, putting off potential buyers. Each stand is its own show, helping a clear understanding of each artist and their work as individual – something which is increasingly hard for those not used to it. In Italy moreover, there continues to a certain resistance from audiences towards this sort of approach to viewing art – with a still prevalent attitude of “a five year old could have done that.” Such a response makes sense if we consider the cultural heritage of the country, and the fact that in schools, art is still referred to as “Fine Art.”

Fabio Castelli, the mastermind behind MIA, claims that Italy – and by extension, the whole world – needs a new, specific education for understanding and appreciating the new forms and aesthetics of art. Contemporary works, incomprehensible using the old codes, require new methods, more skills of observation, and the ability above all to overcome any prejudices towards how they were made: that is, not to judge a piece of art solely on its technical mastery. Indeed, in the contemporary art world, there is a noticeable regression (not necessarily in the negative sense of the world) towards the minimal – and the appreciation of the small.

The art fairs of today have the hard task of being educative, and bringing about an understanding – and this this seems to be the main objective of MIA, which will take place at “Superstudio Piú” on Tortuna street, 27.

For more details visit www.miafair.it

menschauser

If you’re curious to see how this new event goes, you can rent apartments in Milan and get involved with the new “scene.”

Contact Me 

Translated by: Poppy
Contact Me

Caravaggio painted mainly paintings with religion related issues to but their work opportunities were rejected first by the realism and then by the choice of the models he did. Instead of choosing beautiful and aristocratic people he most often chose prostitutes, children living on the street or homeless.

Even Caravaggio often rejected the request of his customers to correct the imperfections of their models. He began to pay a lot more attention to realism of his paintings and he said no to the request of the church to paint the most perfect angels. A clear example is the work of St. Matthew and the Angel. At first this painting had been rejected by the sensuality that the angel showed and also the dirt that was on his feet.

The play “The Eyes of Caravaggio. His formative years between Venice and Milan” will be held in Milan until July 3 and you will enjoy more than 60 works.

The piece that has caused the Italian artist many problems and controversy was The Death of the Virgin, in which the Virgin Mary is depicted dead with a swollen stomach. This painting was so realistic that there were rumors the model for the piece was the cadaver of a prostitute that had drowned.

For more information: http://www.museodiocesano.it/iniziativa.asp?id=777&Categoria=1&TipoEvento=1&sez=3&link=11

Museo Diocesano: Corso di Porta Ticinese, 95, 20123 Milan, Italy

MiLK

Art lovers can now admire one of the most important artists of all time and rent apartments in Milan to do so, because the exhibition titled “The eyes of Caravaggio. His years of training between Venice and Milan” takes place here at the Diocesano Museum until July 3rd. More than 60 works that mark Caravaggio’s training and career are exhibited.

Contact Me 

Translated by: Maria
Contact Me