Alberto Savinio and his Other: Nivasio Dolcemare
February 08, 2018
A multifaceted and versatile artist crossing the boundaries of disciplines and genres, Alberto Savinio also multiplied his own self in autobiographical novels and stories through the invention of innumerable masks of his own persona. Among his many fictitious characters, however, one stands out: Nivasio Dolcemare. Nivasio is not only an anagram of his nom de plume, Savinio (itself a surreptitious name to distance himself from his brother de Chirico); it is also Savinio’s doppelgänger, a fictive character who shared his own childhood in Greece, his avant-garde friendships in Paris, and his career and marital life in Rome, but cannot be fully superimposable on his author. Nivasio is one of the keys to Savinio’s metaphysical enigmas. His recurrent presence in Savinio’s stories dissolves the contrasts between autobiography and surrealism, and between fiction and memory, with irresistible comic effects.
Franco Baldasso (Bard College) will introduce Savinio’s fascinating literary inventions and his many doubles, commenting upon excerpts from Savinio’s texts read by the poet Sara Fruner.
Free; RSVP required.
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Rosenberg Apartment Study Day
February 03, 2018
Léonce Rosenberg was one of the most influential dealers of modern art in Paris during and after World War I. The eldest son of the art dealer Alexandre Rosenberg, he and his brother Paul inherited their father’s business and divided it between them, with Léonce starting his own business in 1910 focused on the haute époque (antiquities from the Far and Middle East, Old Masters). In 1918 Léonce established the Galerie L’Effort Moderne, which specialized exclusively in modern art (or Cubist art). It became during the 1920s a crucial hub of support for avant-garde artists such as Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Gino Severini, Giorgio de Chirico, Francis Picabia, and many others. In 1928 he rented a new apartment on the rue de Longchamp and commissioned a number of his favorite artists to realize decorative schemes for the various rooms—including both Giorgio de Chirico, subject of CIMA’s 2016-17 season, and Alberto Savinio, subject of CIMA’s current 2017-18 season.
With this program CIMA devotes an afternoon to exploring the history of this apartment and the artists who contributed artworks to it—including de Chirico, Savinio, Picabia, Léger, Herbin, Metzinger, Valmier, Severini, Ernst— looking in particular at how Rosenberg’s vision of the art dealer as a modern form of patron translated into the decoration. Beyond the still striking differences that characterize the artists involved and their practices, is it possible to identify any shared themes, visually or on the level of subject matter? “Modern antiquity” can be read as a common thread through most of the rooms, and there is also the idea of “transparency” and layered images in the works produced by Picabia, Savinio, and Ernst. What different history of Modernism can Rosenberg’s apartment tell?
Program Schedule
1:30pm – Registration opens; viewing of Alberto Savinio exhibition
2pm – Welcome by Heather Ewing, executive director of CIMA
2:15pm – Giovanni Casini, 2017-18 Hilla Rebay Fellow, Guggenheim Foundation, and former 2016-17 CIMA Fellow, on Léonce Rosenberg as a dealer, the evolution of his taste in modern art, the apartment project, and an introduction to the public reception rooms
2:45pm – Matthew Affron, Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on Fernard Léger
3:15pm – Giovanni Casini on Giorgio de Chirico’s Hall of Gladiators and contributions by Jean Metzinger, Auguste Herbin, and Georges Valmier
3:45pm – coffee break
4:00pm – Alice Ensabella, 2017-18 CIMA Fellow, on an introduction to the Rosenberg apartment private rooms and Gino Severini
4:30pm – Anne Umland, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), on Francis Picabia
5pm – Alice Ensabella on Alberto Savinio
5:30pm – Q&A roundtable discussion
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Savinio Echoes: Saya Woolfalk and Lucas Blalock in conversation
January 26, 2018
Savinio’s “pre-postmodern” paintings are eccentric, vividly colored, and widely varied, containing everything from abstract patterning to traditional landscapes to mythological figures and engaging elements of surrealism, the fantastic, and the absurd. Contemporary artists Saya Woolfalk and Lucas Blalock join art historian Lauren Rosati in a conversation on their own practices and recent projects, and also respond to the exhibition on view, offering contemporary perspectives on Savinio’s pioneering work. This discussion around inter-generational creativity will explore the role of surrealism, myth, fantasy, history, color, and hybrid forms in each of these artists’ works, revealing affinities and shared interests.
Photographer Lucas Blalock (born 1978, North Carolina) engages the ways that falseness or evident mechanics in photographs can bring both the picture and the pictured into sharper focus. He pursues this through a variety of overlapping strategies (often involving Photoshop) that alienate the “natural” view generally associated with photographic pictures. Blalock’s work employs an expanded notion of photography to consider a world that is ever more inhabited by the plasticities of the virtual.
Intermedia artist Saya Woolfalk (born 1979, Japan) uses science-fiction, mythological research, and fantasy to question cultural boundaries and reimagine contemporary life. Her ongoing project, the Empathics—which incorporates sculpture, installation, video, performance, and textiles—explores a fictional race of women who are able to alter their genetic make-up and fuse with plants. Exploring issues of colonialism, multiculturalism, and ethnography, Woolfalk’s complex narrative projects question the utopian possibilities of cultural hybridity.
Lauren Rosati is a curator and art historian whose research and projects focus on the interdisciplinary study of modernism, in particular the relation of modern art to music, sound, performance, science and technology. She was previously an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art, an Andrew W. Mellon Museum Research Consortium Fellow at the Museum of Modern Art, Assistant Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the National Academy Museum, and Assistant Curator at Exit Art. She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Art History at the City University of New York, Graduate Center.
Free; RSVP required.
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Art In Fact and Fiction: Michael Findlay and Frederic Tuten in Conversation
January 17, 2018
Celebrating an art world friendship of over fifty years, Michael Findlay and writer Frederic Tuten will discuss looking at art and writing about art and artists.
Michael Findlay is a director of Acquavella Galleries and the author of The Value of Art (Prestel, 2012) and the recently published Seeing Slowly—Looking At Modern Art (Prestel, 2016). His newest book is a call encouraging us to see art with all of our senses—a sentiment that reverberates strongly with CIMA’s emphasis on slow art and close looking. “The most important thing for us to grasp,” writes Findlay, “is that the essence of a great work of art is inert until it is seen. Our engagement with the work of art liberates its essence.”
Frederic Tuten is an art critic and the author of five novels, including The Adventures of Mao on the Long March and Van Gogh’s Bad Café and many short stories, including the recently published Self-Portraits: Fictions.
Free; RSVP required.
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Towards the Grande Brera – Palazzo Citterio and the Birth of Brera Modern
January 11, 2018
Join us for an exclusive preview of exciting new developments for modern Italian art in Milan. Dr. James Bradburne, the director of the Pinacoteca di Brera, looks at the long and complicated gestation of the project to transform the Palazzo Citterio (adjacent to the Palazzo di Brera) into a showcase for the museum’s great collections of modern Italian art. Scheduled to open to the public in early 2019, the project brings to completion a vision spelled out by the legendary director of Brera in the 1970s, Franco Russoli.
This evening’s program will also be the first opportunity for visitors to see a new addition to CIMA’s exhibition: Alberto Savinio’s La cité des promesses of 1928, one of the modern masterpieces from the Emilio Jesi collection of the Pinacoteca di Brera, which will be on view at CIMA until the end of May. It joins L’ile des charmes, as two of the six works Savinio produced for the art dealer Léonce Rosenberg. These two paintings will be the centerpiece of a Study Day on February 3 examining Rosenberg as a patron and the commissions he made of Savinio, de Chirico, Picabia, Léger, Ernst, and other artists, for his Paris apartment.
Free; reservations required.
Please note the early hour of 5:30pm for this program.
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James M. Bradburne is a British-Canadian architect and museum specialist. He was appointed Director General of the Pinacoteca di Brera of Milan in October 2015, one of twenty such appointments made by the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini as part of a historic shake up of the state museum sector in Italy. Previously, from 2006 to 2015, he served as the founding director of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, one of Italy’s first public-private partnerships and Florence’s largest temporary exhibition space.
SAVINIO: MYTHS AND HEROINES
December 14, 2017
Savinio: Myths and Heroines
An Evening of Literature at CIMA
Join us for a talk on Alberto Savinio’s portrayal of female protagonists from Greek mythology by CIMA Fellow Serena Alessi and Bard College’s Franco Baldasso, together with some readings of original Savinio texts by Sara Fruner. Savinio’s modern reinterpretation of the Greek myths will be at the center of a discussion about the artist’s multidisciplinary production and his eccentric literary talent. Ariadne, Penelope, and Alcesti are the heroines of Savinio’s novels, theater, and fiction. In the midst of Savinio’s outstanding paintings, the conversation will delve into his literary world from a unique viewpoint—his special relationship with the great mythical women of pre-classic Greece as well as with modern divas such as Isadora Duncan.
FREE; RSVP required.
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Drawing Night at CIMA
December 07, 2017
Join us for a special Drawing Night and Aperitivo, opening CIMA’s unique setting to artists of all levels to analyze and draw from works on view by Alberto Savinio. Pencils have been generously donated by Blick Art Materials and paper has been provided by the legendary Italian
All skill levels welcome!
Limited to 30 participants.
FREE for CIMA Members.
*Please note that members are allowed to bring their own supplies but only sketching materials are permitted. No water media, ink, or solvents are allowed in the galleries.
Refreshments have been generously donated by:
Irving Sandler in conversation with Phong Bui
November 21, 2017
Join us for a special evening with legendary art critic, art historian, and chronicler of the New York School, Irving Sandler, in conversation with Phong Bui, artist and publisher of the Brooklyn Rail. The two will discuss Sandler’s perspectives of the New York art world; the latest volume of his memoirs, Swept Up By Art: An Art Critic in the Post-Avant-Garde Era, published in 2016 by Rail Editions; and his experiences with his mentor, the art historian Robert Goldwater—husband of Louise Bourgeois.
MISSED THE PROGRAM? WATCH THE VIDEO NOW!
Program schedule:
6pm – registration and exhibition viewing
6:20pm – conversation program begins, followed by Q&A
7:30pm – conversation program concludes; exhibition viewing
8pm – CIMA closes
Dr. Irving Sandler is Professor Emeritus of Art History at State University of New York and a contributing editor of Art in America. He has authored four surveys of art as well as monographs onMark di Suvero, Al Held, Deborah Kass, and Alex Katz. He was director of the Neuberger Museum of Art in and co-founder of Artists Space Gallery. In 2008, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Art Criticism from the International Association of Art Critics.
Phong Bui is an artist, writer, independent curator, and former curatorial advisor at MoMA PS1, 2007 to 2010. He is also the Co-Founder, Publisher and Artistic Director of the monthly journal the Brooklyn Rail, the publishing press Rail Editions, and the Rail Curatorial Projects.
Renato Barilli on ALBERTO SAVINIO
November 14, 2017
Join us for a talk on Alberto Savinio by renowned Italian art historian and critic Renato Barilli. Barilli will focus in particular on the nature of Savinio’s relationship with his better known brother, Giorgio de Chirico (a subject of the 2016-17 season at CIMA). He posits that if Giorgio, the elder of the two, received full protection and place of pride from their mother, Alberto, the younger, accepted his reduced consideration from their mother with humility, avoiding any competition with his sibling. So, in the first phase of his existence Alberto limited his activity to the field of music, and as far as the visual field, resigned to be only the herald of Giorgio’s talent, becoming the best theoretician of “Metafisica”. But in 1926, the period covered in CIMA’s exhibition, Alberto dared to defy the prohibition established by de Chirico to become a painter. Their common poetics, their metaphysical art, diverged in interesting ways. Giorgio used to cultivate such escape from banal reality, mainly by insisting on icons collected in the museums, recognized by the history of art. Alberto in contrast reserved to his painting a kind of lateral issue, searching for his themes in the world of animals, or in a systematic cultivation of the different ages of geology. To see these different approaches, nothing is more profitable than to compare the two artist’s portraits of their beloved mother. De Chirico’s is magnificent, solemn, sacred; Savinio’s, perhaps on account of being humiliated by her, was cruel, humorous, derisive, placing the head of a hen on her body, very prosaic, very vulgar. In the same manner, if his brother referenced magnificent aspects of past glories, such as ruins, monuments, solemn statues, Savinio depicted a childish world of toys, very near to kitsch.
Renato Barilli, professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, where he has taught for four decades, is one of the most important art historians and critics of the postwar period in Italy. He has pioneered the subject of “the phenomenology of style,” a field that focuses on the visual arts but extends as well into literature. His primary book on the topic, The Science of Culture and the Phenomenology of Styles, was published in English in 2012. A curator as well as the author of numerous essays and books, Barilli is particularly noted for his focus on postmodernism and the artistic movement he dubbed the Nuovi-Nuovi (the New New). He invites you to visit his blog, www.renatobarilli.it, where every Sunday he posts three essays linked to his prevailing interests in the visual arts, literary criticism, and politics.
Missed the event? Watch the video here!
Aperitivo and Drawing Night at CIMA
November 09, 2017
Join us for a special Drawing Night and Aperitivo, opening CIMA’s unique setting to artists of all levels to analyze and draw from works on view by Alberto Savinio. Pencils have been generously donated by Blick Art Materials and paper has been provided by the legendary Italian
All skill levels welcome!
Limited to 30 participants.
*Please note that members are allowed to bring their own supplies but only sketching materials are permitted. No water media, ink, or solvents are allowed in the galleries.
Refreshments have been generously donated by:
