Kandinsky among highlights of new Italian art shows

Exhibitions from Ancient Greece to Arte Povera

(ANSA) - Rome, March 26 - Italy has a magnificent selection of important exhibitions opening over the weekend, including 'Kandisky: the artist as shaman' in Vercelli, Piedmont. The show includes abstract masterpieces from St. Peterburg's Hermitage collection, which retraces Kandinsky's unsurpassed creative growth. Also opening is Milan's 'Piero Manzoni', the inventions and unsettling provocations of the artist in commemoration of 50 years since Manzoni's death.

Meanwhile, Rome inaugurates 'Classic Antiquity and Europe: the fate of Greece and Rome', an exhibition dedicated to Greece and Rome at the Palazzo del Quirinale, and in Padua, the display 'Padua is its walls', follows five centuries of the northeastern city's development since the construction of the city's walls.

But one of the most closely watched will be the Vercelli exhibition which runs from Saturday to July 14 and offers a journey into abstraction and spirituality of Wassily Kandinsky, on display in Vercelli's 14th century Church of St. Mark.

Fully 22 pieces by the Russian artist, one of the undisputed protagonists of the twentieth century, come from the prestigious St. Petersburg's Hermitage and illustrates Kandinsky's complex internal journey in abstract language during 1911. In his book "The Spiritual in Art" published in 1911, Kandisky argued that through color, shape, their combination and rhythm of the composition, it was possible to express the moods and emotions caused by the outside world as well as by the profound impulses of the human spirit. Essential to Kandinsky's formation was the time he spent in Vologda, Siberia, where as part of an ethnographic research group, he explored the life, customs and economy of the Sirieni, a small ethnic group to which the artist devoted several scientific articles. There, on the outskirts of civilization, Kandinsky also encountered ancient shamanic rituals, from which his deep spirituality was strongly affected, and he began to consider leaving his research to embrace art. Among the masterpieces featured in the exhibition are Kandinsky's first symbolist landscapes, large canvases from the Murnau period, masterpieces side by side with works from contemporary masters, as well as an extraordinary group of ritual objects and polar, shamanic traditions (on loan from the Sergio Poggianella Foundation) practiced in the remote and decimated regions of Siberia.

Milan's Royal Palace commemorates Piero Manzoni, 50 years after his death, in a magnificent exhibition that continues through June 2. More than 100 works of art retrace his short but intense life, which ended when a heart attack struck him down in his studio in Milan at the age of 29. In those few years, however, Manzoni had a succession of creations and provocations, culminating with the famous "Merda d'Artista" (Artist's Shit), that decisively influenced future generations of artists. The current exhibition begins with Manzoni's early works, dark brown-toned paintings sprinkled with small imaginary forms, which he subsequently abandoned for Achromes, all-white paintings made of layers kaolin, a soft white clay, on canvas. Achromes were followed by series of artificial Achromes, made of cotton padding, fluffy fiberglass and kaolin-covered bread rolls. Manzoni also created "Artist's Breath", the artist's inflated balloons, "Edible Sculpture", eggs signed with Manzoni's thumbprint, as well as "Living Sculptures", where Manzoni signed people and "Lines", ink traces on paper rolls of varying length. From March 29 to July 15, Rome's Quirinale Palace is host to 'Classic Antiquity and Europe: the Fate of Greece and Italy', an exhibition celebrating the role of the two ancient empires.

It comes as 2014 marks Greece and Italy's back-to-back European Union presidencies, with Greece holding the rotating title from January 1 to June 30 and Italy from July 1 to December 31. Twenty-five works from Greek and Italian museums will be displayed in the Quirinale's Hall of Ramps and Halls of Flags in an exhibition curated by Louis Godart, director for the Conservation of Artistic Heritage of the Italian President.

Celebrating the 500th anniversary of the construction of Padua's historic city walls, integral to the city's identity, is the exhibition 'Parma is its walls'. The major exhibition reconstructs half a millennium of Parma wall history through archaeological finds, artifacts, weapons and instruments of war, drawings, engravings, rare books and paintings, as well as specially-made reconstructions in models, videos, etc. The exhibition's goal is to showcase and celebrate the walls, and bring the important structures back to the forefront of cultural debate on the city's future, not just as a planning concern, but as resource and identity-making hub. The exhibit is on display from Saturday to July 20 at the Eremitani Civic Museums.