Italy’s first August weekend features major exhibitions spanning Klee, Chagall, Picasso, contemporary star Cerith Wyn Evans, and a rediscovery of Concetta Baldassarre.
DOMODOSSOLA – “Beyond the Borders of Reality: Between Klee, Chagall and Picasso” opens at the Musei Civici ‘Gian Giacomo Galletti’ from August 1st to January 11th. Conceived and curated by Antonio D’Amico with Stefano Papetti and Federico Troletti, the exhibition explores the interwar period through the 1960s. It presents a core of previously unseen paintings and applied artworks by Pablo Picasso, Osvaldo Licini, Fausto Melotti, Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, and Gastone Novelli, aiming to shatter rational constraints and rediscover a spiritual, liberating dimension beyond the tangible.
BOSCOREALE (NA) – The Antiquarium di Boscoreale hosts Cerith Wyn Evans’ solo show “Pompeii Threnody” until January 11th. Curated by Andrea Viliani with Stella Bottai, Laura Mariano, and Caterina Avataneo, it is the first site-specific exhibition for the “Pompeii Commitment. Archaeological Matters” programme, designed for the Antiquarium and Villa Regina. Through 12 works, the Welsh artist explores memory, time, and transformation, proposing an unconscious dialogue “with those and that which, ultimately, continues to live in Pompeii,” evoking its enduring vital memory.
SAN LUCIDO (CS) – The fourth Fotografia Calabria Festival, directed by Anna Catalano, runs from August 1st to October 12th. Sixteen exhibitions revolve around the theme “Common Roots: Places.” Highlights include Marie Tomanova’s “It Was Once My Universe,” documenting her return to the Czech Republic after years in the US; Hashem Shakeri’s “Cast Out of Heaven,” depicting isolating satellite cities on Tehran’s fringe; and a group show featuring Paul Gambin’s “(Talk to Me About Love)” blending landscape, sound, and personal iconography, Jung Ui Lee’s “Urban Tattoo – This is Beautiful” transforming Korean commercial signs into collective memory, and Ciro Battiloro’s “Silence Is A Gift” portraying family dynamics in Southern Italian neighbourhoods.
TAGLIACOZZO – The 12th edition of Contemporanea, directed by Emanuele Moretti and curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi, takes place at Palazzo Ducale Orsini Colonna from August 3rd to September 21st. It features two artists: Concetta Baldassarre with the retrospective “The Unveiled Portrait of a Life in Art” – the first since her death – showcasing 60 paintings and drawings reconstructing the life and work of this extraordinary post-war artist and pupil of Toti Scialoja; and Anglo-Indian artist Annu Palakunnathu Matthew with “Hidden Stories: Italians of Abruzzo and Indian Soldiers in WWII” (curated with Maria Teresa Capacchione). Matthew presents an installation uncovering the little-known history of Indian soldiers, who fought alongside the British, later imprisoned near Avezzano.
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