On April 12, 2022 a great exhibition dedicated to Gustav Klimt opens in Piacenza.
Following the finding of "Portrait of a Lady" in December 2019, the Ricci Oddi Gallery of Modern Art, orphaned of the work for more than 20 years, has carried out a three-year project that began in 2020 with the exhibition of the painting in a new display case, followed in 2021 by the exhibition "Klimt e i maestri segreti della Ricci Oddi" to arrive at the most complex exhibition of 2022.
The Portrait made headlines in the 1990s due to the discovery of an earlier portrait under the painted surface. The hidden face belonged to the painting "Backfisch" made in the 1910s by Klimt, the current portrait belongs to the end of the artist's career.
The new exhibition follows and is complementary to the event in progress at the Museum of Rome "Klimt la Secessione e l'Italia". Piacenza's collaboration has not only opened towards the capital, loans and collaborations have been activated with large European institutions: the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, the Neue Galerie in Graz, and the Klimt Foundation.
The exhibition includes 160 works of art coming from 20 different collections. It analyses different moments of Klimt's life and style.
It moves from the climate of European Symbolism, from which Klimt takes his cue with engravings and drawings emblematic of Klinger, Redon, Munch, Ensor, Khnopff, the famous Medusa von Stuck and sculptures by Minne and Klinger himself, and then introduces visitors to the world of Klimt, with his early works and his first companions.
We then enter the story of the painter through the Viennese Secession, which he founded with 17 other artists in 1897 as a sign of protest against official art.
The world of the Wiener Werkstätte, the decorative art workshops founded in Vienna by Josef Hoffmann and Kolo Moser in 1903, is documented through furniture, silverware, glass and ceramics. Also on display are Secession posters, including Klimt's Theseus and the Minotaur (1898), which caused a scandal at the time.
The itinerary is also enriched by an important section dedicated to the Italian artists who were inspired by Klimt, with extraordinary works such as the Dream of the Pomegranate (1912-1913) by Felice Casorati.
The exhibition closes with the reconstruction of the monumental Beethoven Frieze (a 2019 copy of the 1901 original), thus reserving for visitors a highly suggestive experience.
More Info: visitpiacenza.it
