Imagine: Italy Imagery 1960-67

Interesting exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice giving an overview of art in Italy in the 1960s.

The show began by defining to imagine as “to form a mental image” and each gallery shows how a different artist used research to inform their thinking. Well I think that’s what it was but I just found it a collection of not particularly attractive work from an era I’m not that interested in in terms of art. Sorry!

I was interested in the idea that when Italian artists looked to do pop art some of them turned to their artists past rather than the contemporary consumer culture so I liked Giovetta Fioroni’s take on the Botticelli “Birth of Venus”.

I liked Domenico Gnoli’s big square pictures focusing in on sections of clothing like a great zoom lens so just showing the shoulder of a suit or collar of a dress. I also liked his bed pictures with the shadows of the bodies in them.  Also Michelangelo Pistoletto’s work on Plexiglass was fun and I loved his beautifully painted ladder.

Closes 19 September 2016

 

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