› Franco Angeli, Mario Ceroli, Tano Festa, Jannis Kounellis, Sergio Lombardo, Francesco Lo Savio, Renato Mambor, Gino Marotta, Fabio Mauri, Mimmo Rotella, Mario Schifano, Cesare Tacchi

Until October 15th, 2017

Curated by Laura Cherubini and Erica Ravenna

The exhibition project, through a selection of the works of the most important artists in the Roman scenario from 1960 to 1970, proposes a new reading of the poetry of those years conventionally associated with Pop art movements,  Arte Povera and conceptual art, highlighting the common reference to the tradition of the history of classical Italian art. The universe that, at that time, turned around Piazza del Popolo and Caffè Rosati, was not only formed by painters, but also by writers, poets, musicians, representative of the intellectual world who – attracted by a reality in frantic transformation – confronted themselves on the possibility of a new way of being and expressing art.

The works exhibited by Franco Angeli, Mario Ceroli, Tano Festa, Jannis Kounellis, Sergio Lombardo, Francesco Lo Savio, Renato Mambor, Gino Marotta, Fabio Mauri, Mimmo Rotella, Mario Schifano, Cesare Tacchi, are exemplary testimony of the unique and original atmosphere of those years, the more so by the way that each experience, though peculiar in itself, expressed the common fact of a link – never interrupted – with their own art history and culture. There were references to Futurism, Metaphysics, European New Dada and Burri, as well as to the great artists of the past thus far from the cold repetitiveness and seriality of images of American Pop art: consumer goods as symbol of the new mass culture as many of them have often emphasized.

I am sorry for the Americans whose history is only a few hundred years old, but for an Italian and Roman artist living a step away from the Vatican walls only the Sistine Chapel, the true trademark of what is made in Italy can be considered popular. Moreover I am always fascinated by that diffused and subtle homosexual ambiguity. As for the use of violently colored enamels that in the ‘60s symbolized an intentional punch in the stomach, I am pleased to see that the restoration of the Sistine Chapel by the Japanese is drawing out brilliant and contrasting hues that make mine pale away. However, generally speaking my relation with Michelangelo is one of plagiarism. ( Tano Festa, interviewed by Antonella Amendola).