The exhibition “Reading time. Books in Art. 21st century” housed at Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino by Laura Garbarino on a project by Agnese Marengo and Maurizio Romanengo, continues the reflection on the image of the book in art, the dematerialization of language and its erasures, deepening the link between art and books from the Sixties to the present.
The book is part of everyone's story. The charm of this object has been and continues to be unlimited. Even stronger charm at the moment when the book, by its nature, escapes its canonical function. The book becomes a work of art, it becomes an instrument of protest, it becomes a dream, it becomes time.
Reading time is a hymn to the book, there are those who paint it on cuts, Vedovamazzei, creating a copy and occupying the opposite, and those who paint covers of an essential encyclopedia like Luca Bertolo. Books like milestones drowned in a marble monolith by Francesco Arena. Cutouts of time, those of Serena Vestrucci and Sabrina Mezzaqui, uncertain balances those of Giuseppe Mirigliano, books excavated, lunar landscapes such as the work of Gianni Caravaggio and irreverent book that of Enrico Bafico; swirling books by Stefano Arienti, words illuminated by a lighthouse, dreamlike landscape by Mario Airò.
Books that bloom like the Ashes of Gramsci by Elisabetta Benassi; 3D carvings in the four-hand video by Marzia Migliora and Elisa Sighicelli, futuristic reissues of eighteenth-century silkscreen prints in the work of Salvatore Arancio. Controversy in the parody of American society with the Flintstones in the animated book by Andrea Romano, books that transform like Pesato by Enzo Cucchi. Books forced between two plates in Gianfranco Baruchello and books released in the nature of Renata Boero or magic boxes by Lucia Marcucci. The drawn time of Chiara Camoni and her grandmother, a daily diary of flowers and thoughts painted by Elisa Montessori; And the stars are watching us, the time according to the stars and the follies of Liliana Moro's current affairs. Books cut those of the Ulysses of Dora Garcia and still books sewn - Maria Lai - books burned in time of a moment - Jannis Kounellis - museum books by Giulio Paolini, abstract books of lines and colors by Grazia Varisco, illegible books by Bruno Munari; violent book of war, loss, denounces that of Fabio Mauri, Andrea Mastrovito and Dennis Oppenheim. Giovanni Anselmo's reflection on the theme of the visible and the invisible, in the illegibility of the word 'read'. The tribute to Maurizio Nannucci's Olivetti M40 typewriter that contains square typograms. Writing erased from the form and betrayed by the subject in the felt of Vincenzo Agnetti, philosophical and mathematical paradoxes that meet with the light of the ideas of Alighiero Boetti with whom you learn to think by playing.
The exhibition, organized by the Associazione Palazzo Lomellino di Strada Nuova APS, is among the events of “Genova Italian Capital of the Book” and is part of the network of events related to the exhibition “LIBRI NELL'ARTE. From the Middle Ages to the contemporary age" which involves in addition to the headquarters of Palazzo della Meridiana several city museums such as the National Museums of Genoa - Palazzo Spinola and Palazzo Reale, the Museums of Strada Nuova - Palazzo Rosso and Palazzo Bianco, Wolfsoniana - Palazzo Ducale, Fondazione per la Cultura, the Biblioteca Civica Berio and the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti.
Genoa, Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino
24 April - 30 June 2024
A project by Agnese Marengo, Maurizio Romanengo
Curated by Laura Garbarino