This year CIMA is thrilled to welcome Claudia Daniotti and Nicol Mocchi.
– What is your favourite artwork from the Marino Marini show at CIMA and why?
CD: I believe it is the Pomona of 1945: it is such an imposing and fascinating bronze, which resonates very much with my own university background in both art history and the classics. As an art historian specialising on iconography and the classical tradition, I am much interested in Marini’s reinterpretation of visual themes from antiquity, and his Pomonas are a particularly interesting case in point.
– Tell me the most interesting thing you have seen so far in NYC:
CD: It is a little exhibition at the Met entitled ‘Relative Values: The Cost of Art in the Northern Renaissance’. It features a selection of sixteenth-century artworks from the Met permanent collection, objects as different as tapestries, little bronzes, stained glass, silver cups, paintings, gold and enamel jewels. To get a sense of the value that each object would have back then is a problematic matter, because of the notorious difficulty to translate old prices in today’s money. So, in the exhibition each object is juxtaposed not only with pricing data from sixteenth-century documents, but also with the number of cows that would have been needed to purchase it. Not only a most effective and fun way to present the matter, but also truly eye-opening!
– When was your first time in New York? What surprised you the most about this city?
CD: I first came to New York in the Spring of 2015; I had been invited to a conference at Princeton but made some time afterwards to enjoy the company of some friends here in New York. Exploring the city with them was mesmerising and I have not forgotten the sense of freedom that I felt wandering around. Everything was so big, the city so breathtakingly beautiful and at the same time so familiar, a sort of déjà vu, it was exactly as I expected it to be from the countless American movies everyone of us grew up with. An Italian writer and journalist who lived in the U.S., Beppe Severgnini, once said that “you don’t go to America. You go back, even if it’s only your first trip”. I find this so true!
– Best 3 museums or art sites worldwide according to your taste:
CD: I cannot possibly name only three of them! If I had to, I’d say the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Villa Farnesina in Rome, and the Museo Stibbert in Florence. But how could I not mention my London beloved, the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Wallace Collection, Leighton House?
– If you could purchase any painting, which one would it be? Why? And where would you put it in your apartment?
CD: I would say a little painting in the National Gallery in London, which shows a very moving depiction of the Deposition of Christ. It was made around 1500 by a still anonymous German painter working in Cologne, the ‘Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altarpiece’. If I could buy this picture, I would surely keep it in a private space, perhaps my bedroom.
– Which city in Italy are you from? How would you describe it, using three words?
CD: I was born and grew up in Treviso, a little town not far from Venice: but I have been living in London for twelve years now, so I feel I am somewhere in between a trevigiana and a Londoner. Treviso is a little jewel; London is exciting, diverse, and multicultural.
– What do you hope to gain from this experience at CIMA? What are the things that you are most looking forward to?
CD: To learn more about Marino Marini, for sure! And to get to know a little bit of this vast country and its people – in this respect, even the guided tours that I am leading to our exhibition provide a magnificent opportunity for me. I do look forward to continuing the research project that I’ve begun at CIMA, focusing on Marini’s work in relation to its sources of inspiration from ancient Etruria and Egypt. Although London has indeed plenty of libraries for researchers like myself, the resources available in New York are truly great and am trying to make the most of them all.
– What do you like to do when you are not working?
CD: You rarely see me without a book in my hands, so I would certainly say reading. And then visiting museums, little churches and anything even remotely connected to the art that I love the most – I am never too far away from such places!
– How did you first become interested in art history?
CD: I believe I have always been, something that I surely take from my mother, who is also much interested in art. But I distinctly remember the moment when I decided that I would become an art historian. I was fifteen and already knew that I wanted my life, in one way or another, to be spent studying. And then I talked to a friend’s relative who was reading history of art at the university and that was it. I was caught, it was decided: I would be studying history of art.
– What is your favourite artwork from the show at CIMA and why?
NM: Susanna, 1943, casted in bronze in 1946-51. It was conceived during Marini’s voluntary exile in Tenero, near Locarno (Switzerland), where he would stay till the end of the war. I love the way he overturns the ancient story transforming Susanna into a woman of our days. Solitary and somehow vulnerable in her exposed nudity — she is wearing only a ring on the right hand—, but at the same time calm and reassuring, this seated figure seems to be taken by surprise. The slightly blurred surfaces as well as the flicker of body movement betray a state of anxiety and precarious ambiguity: what had just happened ? What will happen next ?
– Tell me the most interesting thing you have seen so far in NYC
NM: Exhibitions everywhere, both in the most prestigious museums and in the tiniest and remotest venues.
– When was your first time in New York? What surprised you the most about this city?
NM: My first time in New York was in 2015 on winter holidays and I was struck by the myriad of cultural stimuli, as well in art, architecture and music. Just returned home I applied for my first fellowship at CIMA. From that day I come back to the city each year to do research or attend study conferences.
– Best 3 museums or art sites worldwide according to your taste:
NM: The Metropolitan Museum in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
– If you could purchase any painting, which one would it be? Why? And where would you put it in your apartment?
NM: As a scholar of Metaphysical art I would say one of the first paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, Morning Meditation (1911/12), to be placed in the kitchen.
– Which city in Italy are you from? How would you describe it, using three words?
NM: I was born in Milan, but since 2010 my family and I moved to the countryside, in a little village near the Ticino river. Meditative, healthy, and charming.
– What do you hope to gain from this experience at CIMA? What are the things that you are most looking forward to?
NM: To gain deeper understanding of modern sculpture, and of Marini’s work, by learning diverse research methods and interdisciplinary approaches applied to history of art, and by taking full advantage of the invaluable documentary materials preserved in the Libraries and Archives located in New York.
– What do you like to do when you are not working?
NM: Traveling makes me truly happy because it is always an enriching and inspiring source. When this matches with work commitments it is the best opportunity ever.
– How did you first become interested in art history?
NM: Since I was a child I spent hours drawing and painting. Right after high school, I began my academic studies in Art History and at the same time I enrolled in a school of fine arts to learn some technical secrets.
