BACKGROUND. Stories of resistance and dissidence - Museo Novecento, Florence

What you will find

EVENT NAME: BACKGROUND. Stories of resistance and dissidence in the Della Ragione Collection

EVENT PLACE: Museo Novecento

EVENT DATE: from 28 September 2024 to 2 April 2025

EVENT HOURS: 11am-8pm, closed on Thursdays

EVENT PRICE: full €9.50, included with the Florencecard

EVENT DESCRIPTION:

About eighty years after the liberation struggle of our country from Nazi-fascism, the Museo Novecento questions the presence, in the Alberto Della Ragione Collection, of testimonies regarding the relationship between artists and the regime. The focus of the exhibition are the works of masters who experienced, suffered or opposed the policies of fascism and who were loved and protected by Della Ragione, including Scipione, Mario Mafai, Antonietta Raphaël, Renato Guttuso, Renato Birolli and Emilio Vedova.

The selected works allow not only to investigate the choices made by the naval engineer, who established intense human as well as professional relationships with many of the artists exhibited here, but also to question the work of these protagonists of Italian art in one of the most dark places in our recent history.

What emerges, in some cases, is the civil and political commitment that animated some artists in this particularly delicate phase of the history of the twentieth century. Emblematic, in this sense, are "talking" paintings such as Massacre by Renato Guttuso and a panel belonging to the series of Fantasies by Mario Mafai.

In others, however, what shines through is a silent ethical and existential torment, sometimes cloaked in a prophetic function. This is the case, for example, of Scipione, an artist who will not have time to experience the entire parable of the regime, but whose creations are characterized by a strong visionary charge and a personal reflection on the meaning of life and death.

Reading between the lines, the exhibition therefore aims to explore even apparently harmless themes and subjects, linked to tradition, to bring out the behind the scenes, the places where the artists' emotions and disturbances are hidden. The rise of a civil and moral resistance is thus made manifest, which is revealed only by looking beyond what is immediately visible.

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