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.

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Translated by: Hans
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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.

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Translated by: Maria
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Justin Bieber was born in Canada in ’94 – and at just 16 years old has become one of the biggest teen stars of all time. But his path to superstardom was an unusual one.

In 2008 a music industry executive called Scooter Braun saw a Youtube video on Google of the young Justin singing and dancing, and decided to become his manager.

Braun was an associate of singer Usher, and together they formed the company Raymond Braun Media Group. Bieber signed a contract with the company, as well as with record label Island Records.

In 2009, the singer released the single “One Time,” which quickly became a smash hit, topping the charts in more than a dozen countries. His first record “My World” not only sold incredibly well, but Bieber also became the first artist with a debut record with seven singles to be included in the Billboard Hot 100.

Bieber’s first studio album, “My World 2.0” was released at the start of this year, with single release “Baby” played all round the world, and remixed by numerous DJs.

More information: http://www.forumnet.it/sito/schedaforum.php?id=1432&setpal=1

Forum: Via G. Di Vittorio, 6, 20090 Assago, Milan, Italia

MiLK

Bieber has received countless awards and nominations, and won The Artist Of The Year at last year’s American Music Awards. This pop phenomenon comes to Ialy to play a show in Milan’s Forum on the 9th of April. So if you want to go and see one of the worlds biggest young stars, you can rent apartments in Milan and discover Justin Bieber.

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Translated by: Poppy
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It’s just been 48 years of the disappearance of the still controversial Italian artist Piero Manzoni (1933-1963), in all likelihood one of the most fascinating creative and influential minds of the artistic movement of the last half century.

Manzoni’s artistic activity, like the one of his contemporary, Yves Klein, who also died prematurely just a year before the Italian, is part of the favorable environment of a self-critical art created from the late 40’s and early 50’s by groups such as COBRA, Gutai, Letterist International, the Situationist International, the neo-dada or New Realists and individuals such as John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Ad Reinhardt. The work of all of them, like Klein and Manzoni’s themselves began to question, in many cases from the work of Marcel Duchamp and the Dadaists, the status of the object, not infrequently seeking a redefinition of the role of art which did not have as an essential element creating objects but rather transferring and donating experiences, thus affirming the everyday as the subject of art in progressive attempts of dematerialization of the art object and developing an ongoing investigation of the art exhibition as a phenomenon itself.

Influenced Klein’s monochromatic exposure in Milan in 1957, Manzoni began making his famous Acroma, white monochrome paintings produced by the immersion of the canvas in kaolin. In a similar way to Klein, Manzoni thought that pure material could become pure energy: “expression, illusion and abstraction are hollow fictions. There is nothing to say, you just have to be, just have to live”.

As an example of the invisible intangible force, in 1959 Manzoni began drawing lines on sheets of landscape paper, which he then rolled and sealed in cylindrical boxes. On these lines he wrote the length of the line, the date it was drawn and signature. The work, as in the case of Erased De Kooning by Rauschenberg was all a set, no lines drawn. The viewer must be confident that there really were the lines inside. A similar work, in this case both alchemical as critical resonances and considerably more controversial, was the packaging of his own shit in cans labeled as Artist’s shit were put up for sale. Similarly, Manzoni sold his own breath as an artist, conveniently very high priced, in a box containing a balloon and a tripod where to put it.

But the always cared and elegant works by the joker Manzoni were not at odds with a touching lyric quality. An empty pedestal in a public park of 82x100x100cm containing a reversed inscription. As we approach we see: “Base of the World”, and underneath, in smaller letters “Base magic number 3 / Piero Manzoni -1961 – / Homage to Galileo”, turning the Earth into a gigantic and beautiful piece of art.

Piazza del Duomo
Milan (Milano)
Italy IT (Italy)
Tel: +39 02 8646 1394

Paul Oilzum

If you found this article interesting, don’t miss his work in the permanent exhibition at the Civic Museum of Contemporary Art in Milan – CIMAC (Palazzo Reale, Piazza del Duomo) when you rent one of the apartments in Milan

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Translated by: Maria
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Although in the last election the Conservative Party announced that in case of winning the British elections they would form the greenest government in the history of the United Kingdom, only a few weeks were enough in power to announce their policy of privatization of all forests and nature reserves in Great Britain.

Similarly, after having boasted of their love for literacy and the need for the habit of reading in all households -the current Deputy Minister of Culture qualified of unprecedented and shameful the possibility that the previous Labor government would close a library in their policy of containment public spending- once in power the coalition of conservatives and liberals threaten to close no more and no less that 465 public libraries, arguing the same reasons. In fact the budget of the Arts Council for matters relating to small museums, archives and libraries has risen from 13 to a meager 3 million pounds.

Despite the mobilization of a large list of artists, writers, musicians and comedians to avoid catastrophe, budget constraints are not clear to end up “destroying our libraries to save the bankers’ bonuses”, to use the wise words of Mark Haddon.

It therefore seems a good time, not only to mobilize against such actions wherever they happen, but to discover the splendid Renaissance palace where the wonderful Ambrosiana library in Milan (http://www.ambrosiana.eu/cms/storia-205-205.htm) that was founded in 1609 by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, can claim to be the second public library in Europe, precleded only by the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Unlike the latter, however, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana also contains an amazing gallery which is closely associated with since its founding, as the institution of the Ambrosiana Library and Picture Gallery was created to provide cultural training for free to anyone who was endowed artistic or intellectual qualities.

Despite the splendid examples of classical and neoclassical statuary, including plaster copies of the Laocoon and the Mercy of Miguel Angel from the collection of Leone Leoni and a wonderful portrait of Antonio Canova, the most valuable element of the Pinacoteca is like its name suggests, its extraordinary collection of paintings.

Among those from the private collection of Cardinal Borromeo we highlight remarkable works such as the Adoration of the Magi and Portrait of a Man by Tiziano, Rafael’s carton for The School of Athens, the fruit basket by Caravaggio or the Rest on the Flight to Egypt by Jacopo Bassano, and a good representation of Flemish masters such as Jan Brueghel and Paul Bril.

In addition, from other collections, the museum also has a Leonardo and the Botticelli’s Madonna del Padiglione and the famous Penitent Magdalene by Guido Reni and two paintings by Giandomenico Tiepolo.

Also, among other gems, in the Library you can admire the Atlantic Codex by Leonardo and copies of books of Virgil and Aristotle noted by Petrarch and Boccaccio respectively based.

Paul Oilzum

Drop by this fascinating place when you rent apartments in Milan This will help you appreciate a little more the love for writing and reading.

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Translated by: Maria
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It’s not that simple. Though in recent generations much about sex has been demystified, and women explore their sexuality more than ever, achieving orgasm is still not quite so straight-forward. It’s not a question of – at least not for women – just lying there until enough “in and out” brings an orgasm. There are many women who have never experimented with themselves, and, resigned to this fact, are not about to start now – and this is a problem.

But what to do about it? What needs to be done so that women can get the most out of sex?

Sexologists have come up with an exercise for couples having problems in bed: switching roles. This doesn’t mean the woman exploring her masculine side, and vice versa (but that can be an interesting game for afterwards]. Changing roles involves each partner acting out the behaviour, and sexual habits of the other, in order to identify those positions, techniques, styles etc which are not working.

Until now, role changing has been used to reveal where the couple is going wrong, but that’s only the first bit – it can also help express how we would like our partners to act. So, whilst imitating her boyfriend, the girl touches him in the way that she would like to be touched, taking her time with different positions etc – and the same goes for the guy. The couple uses the exercise to hand over the reigns to one another.

Switching roles is useful because sometimes verbal communication just doesn’t cut it, and in the world of sex, actions speak much louder than words. Many still struggle to express exactly what they want in bed, either from shyness, or just not finding the right way to say it.

For the exercise to be a success, it’s important that the couple understands that it is not a competition of who is the best or worst lover, but a way of improving mutual sexual performance and pleasure. Also, the man needs to be more aware; not get carried away by his own desire, and work out what his girlfriend is saying to him. The exercise can be repeated as many times as necessary.

Changing where you have sex also helps – staying in the same bed can end up repetitive. Why not take the time to improve your sex life? A visit to Italy would certainly give you a dose of passion…

Miruton

Renting apartments in Milan would be a great way of giving into desire, with no interruptions…

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Translated by: Poppy
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Marta, divorced four years ago, secretary and public officer, no children, no pets, is in a time of life that she defines as “starting over, whew!” When defining her current state, she ponders a moment and says:

“But it is not just starting over, it’s a tremendous desire for change that comes over me, but which I fear at the same time, because I don’t want to be wrong again… well, the issue is mainly emotional, I married so young and I’m so sorry about that, because I didn’t live my youth as I would have liked to live it, and now it appears that I am alone, I have a failed marriage and I’m looking forward to having a partner but it’s all much harder than before, I try, really, but I spent almost three years without going out, just going to work and back. I got bored of monotonous life and now I want to be adventurous, I have enrolled in one of these pages for singles and have had many appointments, but it’s not easy for me, I think I do not trust men and I cannot help feeling desperate because this distrust is based on the fact that they seek only fun and I precisely want what I did not build before, maybe have a child, someone who understands me 100% … ouch (sighs)”

As I listen to her almost daily, because it turns out that Marta is a girl, well, a woman, who lives next door to my apartment and I always meet her in the business below in the afternoon buying things for dinner, where we talk and she tells me her trouble, and  while I listen, I remind of this so popular topic, that is the subject of study of professionals from various disciplines, “the 40-year-old crisis”, which as far as I am concerned, is lived differently between men and women. Meanwhile this idea comes to my mind, I’m listening to Marta and I cannot help but feel a kind of vertigo.

Well, what is this famous 40-year-old crisis about? It is a kind of need for change related to personal growth, physical appearance, sexual and emotional life. Experts define it as a concern of the mid-life for the things we’ve done wrong, we have not done and we would like to it is precisely what is causing distress. For women it is also a kind of biological notice, because the ones who were not mothers and raise it as a real possibility, know that the clock is ticking as far as security is concerned and that they will soon have to find that father. Thus, we find ourselves, without meaning to, some unpleasant stereotypes of middle-aged woman, “you are leaving the train,” “you are high and dry”, etc.

Finally, I just want to tell all these “Martas” today and the one who will be playing this role in a few years (ouch, I don’t want to think about it, how scary…), that rather than seeing this period as a crisis, and although it sounds like economic analysis, you should see it as a kind of opportunity. New beginnings are always new opportunities and to be even more positive, and not to spare words for the momentum, “it is never too late to do what we want.”

Luz Obscura

There is no age limit to change your life you so much need. To start: “what about taking that vacation and going shopping? Rent apartments in Milan it’s the ideal destination to get away from any crisis and plan new directions in life.?

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Translated by: salome antigone
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Kemal Basmaci – the protagonist of Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence – had a particular weakness for Milan’s Bagatti Valsecchi Museum (Via Santo Spirito 10/Via Gesu 5), counting it amongst the most important museums of his life – the last few decades of which were devoted to the careful and meticulous exploration of ancient, little-known European museums.

So the story goes, on the exact same day that the love of his life turns 50, Basmaci dies aged 62 from a heart attack early one April morning, whilst sleeping in his room at Milan’s Grand Hotel, which overlooks the famous Via Manzoni, and where he often stayed whilst in the city visiting this favourite museum of his.

Not officially converted into a museum until the 20^th century, it was a house that had originally been remodelled by two brothers, Barons Fausto and Giuseppe Bagatti Valsecchi as an exact replica of a 15^th century Renaissance palace. Today, the museum’s collection is made up of everyday objects acquired by the two brothers over the years – beds, lamps, mirrors etc. Though household items, they’re not lacking in any artistic value – the museum boasts amongst its treasures antique flamenco tapestries, paintings by Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, an extensive collection of Venetian crystal and one of the most impressive libraries in the whole of Europe.  The museum offers a unique opportunity to view the furniture and decorative arts of the era in genuine, meticulously reproduced settings – however, it wasn’t for these reasons alone that Kemal Basmaci was apparently so bewitched by the place, finding himself drawn there time and again.

As told by Pamuk, the true fascination that Basmaci held for the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum was down to the fact that it so clearly matched his own sensibilities, echoing his obsession for the collection of objects, and going on inspire his own Museum of Innocence. His conviction was that museums contain an experience waiting to be discovered by the visitor, who must seek it out, and absorb it, learning that the heart and soul of a museum lies within the artefacts inside it.

Paul Oilzum

The Bagatti Valsecchi museum is a genuine time capsule – rent apartments in Milan and you can experience it for yourself.

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Translated by: Poppy
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California is the undisputed land of punk, and Pennywise is one band that has come to embody that Californian sound. The group was formed in ’88 in Hermosa Beach by Jim Lindberg, Fletcher Dragge, Byron McMack and Jason Thirsk, and took its name from the monster in Stephen King novel IT.

After Pennywise brought out their first recording in 1991, the group continued to release a new album every two years, through record label Epitaph Records, run by Brett Gurewitz – guitarist with Bad Religion, a legendary punk band who are still performing today.

Altogether, Pennywise have recorded nine studio albums, one live album, two EPs and a DVD. Most recently, in 2008, the band released Reason To Believe, available for free via Myspace and Textango. Soon after it was distributed by Myspace records in the USA and Epitaph in Europe, the album was put on sale in record stores around the world.

After more than two decades together, Pennywise still had all the original band members up until 1996, when bassist Jason Thirsk committed suicide. In 2001 Jim Lindberg announced that he would be leaving the band, and in 2010 Zoltán Téglás joined as vocalist.

The band who is one of the most important punk bands of our time is coming to Italy February 3 to perform at the Alcatraz.

More information: http://www.alcatrazmilano.com/

Alcatraz: Via Valtellina 21, Milán, Milán, Italia

MiLK

If you want to to see this show the best you can do is rent apartments in Milan to not let this opportunity pass you by.

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Translated by: Poppy
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Led by the very attractive Neil Hannon, The Divine Comedy was born in 1989 in Enniskillen, a small, picturesque village in Ireland. The suggestive name of the band is due to chance, or perhaps serendipity, as he found a work of Dante on his parent’s bookshelf and named the band in its honor.

A year after getting together the band signed its first contract with the label Setanta Records, and debuted with a very short but emphatic album titled Fanfare for the Comic Muse. However, Hannon considered the first real album of the group’s 1993 album Liberation, and now, more than 20 years later they just released Bang Goes the Knighthood.

The Divine Comedy style is eclectic and melancholy, and obviously inspired by classic rock bands like the Kinks and Beatles. However, what stands out most is Hannon´s personality his ability to write the most poetic, beautiful lyrics and melodies. In his songs he gives life to the curious and sad characters inspired by literary stories or poetry, which Hannon loves to read.

Perhaps this intellectual quality is what characterizes this group, which has never attracted media attention for excesses with drugs, sex or alcohol. By contrast, Neil Hannon wants communicate through your music and share, to create a separate world where we can take refuge when we feel lonely or happy, depressed or frantic.

Heloise Battista

On December 6th The Divine Comedy will be in Milan at La Casa 139, to present the latest expressions of their exquisite sound. Rent apartments in Milan and let yourself be enveloped by the sweet and incredibly poetic melodies of Neil Hannon. 

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Translated by: salome antigone
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