Running Exhibition from 31st October 2004 to 31st January 2005
"THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY"

A personal exhibition devoted to Damien Hirst, called the "Agony and the Ecstasy" has been opened at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. The exhibition, which can be visited up to 31 January 2005, is part of a project called "Annali delle Arti", promoted the Campania Region, thought of and organized by Achille Bonito Oliva, and curated by Eduardo Cicelyn, Mario Codognato and Mirta d'Argenzio. Hirst was born in Bristol 1965 and his artistic career has simultaneously represented both the ecstasy and agony, eros and thanatos, corpses and medicines. This juxtaposition has been present since his first success in London, when in the eighties the well known advertising agent Charles Saatchi contributes to give fame to a group of artists called Young British Artists. Hirst is among them one of the most important, especially if we think of his contribution to Sensation, the collective exhibition which took place in 1996. The exhibition stirred up a scandal and was severely criticised by the authorities, by the citizens and by the conformists shocked by the works on display. Hirst very often exhibits animals carcasses preserved in formaldehyde, works that reproduce chemical and physical formulae or chemist set of shelves (like in the last Biennale Venice), monochromes of dead flies and coloured mandalas made with butterflies wings which can be considered metaphors of the human frailty.

Opening hours: Daily from 9 a.m. to 7.30 p.m.; closed on Tuesday.
Information: Information: Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Piazza Museo 19, Napoli. archeona@arti.beniculturali.it http://www.archeona.arti.beniculturali.it
Phone: 0039081440166, Fax 0039081440013

Running Exhibition from 31st October 2004 to 31st January 2005
"CARAVAGGIO: L'ULTIMO TEMPO: 1606-1610"

A suggestive monographic exhibition devoted to Michelangelo Merisi called il Caravaggio (1573-1610) has been opened at Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte. A real genius, he represents ''the other facet'' of Italian Seicento: on one side I Carracci following a tradition of placid composure, on the whole still classic and balanced, on the other hand, il Merisi, a rebel,a non-conformist who was devoted to painting reality freed from any hierarchy and who wanted to show the most true aspect of everyday life. This approach to reality was not understood in his day and he was accused of being vulgar, wheres today this artist ,from the Lombardia region, is considered one essential step for the future development of Lombard tradition which will go on with other worthy artists such as for example Giacomo Ceruti. Caravaggio arrived in Naples in 1606, where he was involved in a murder, he escaped, and from that moment his life wasn't a placid one any longer : he was put in prison in Malta, he managed to escape to Siracusa, Messina, Palermo and finally he returned to Naples where he was wounded. He spent his last days in Grosseto, where he died in 1610, at the very young age of 37. At the exhibition are on display Caravaggio's last year's works : the famous Flagellazione for the Cappella de Franchis in San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, today at Museo di Capodimonte, the Crocifissione di Sant'Andrea belonging to Museum of Art in Cleveland, la Salomè with the Battista's head at the National Gallery in London, and for the first time in Naples, after the recent refurbishment, the work il Martirio di Sant'Orsola (Sant'Orsola wounded by the tyrant), painted for the prince Marcantonio Doria. .

Opening hours: Daily: 8.30-19.30; closed on Monday. .
Information: Museo di Capodimonte, via Miano, 2 Naples
Phone: Ph.: 081 7499111 Fax: 081 2294478- 7445032

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Padiglione America Latina della Mostra d'Oltremare, Naples

Running Exhibition from 21 November 2004 to 16 January 2005
"Julian Schnabel "

A retrospective exhibition devoted to the American artist and film maker Julian Schnabel (New York, 1965), has been opened at Mostra d'Oltremare in Naples. The exhibition which can visited only in Naples up to the 16 January has taken place in other towns in Europe. About 50 big size paintings made by means of a mixed techniques coming from his personal collection and from private collection are displayed at the exhibition. They all are very much representative of Julian Schnabel artistic path. Eduardo Cicelyn, in his introduction to the catalogue, says that Julian Schnabel, is a "complete artist" thanks to his vision of space, seen as big and true in his works, and four the physical energy conveyed by his paintings. Schnabel's art is always gesture-like but also instinctively serial and is organized in cycles: it grabs sensations and concepts, by manipulating, spreading and abandoning them because his art looks beyond, looks for new spaces, other possibilities. His paintings is an explosion of images, of objects or simply works which never lingers over the look, the touch, the thought. His paintings doesn't know the language in its deepness, it stays on the surface, shaking and shaking. The entire artist career can be admired at the exhibition: his most well-known paintings, fragments of ceramic dishes, integrated piled objects, all moving from abstract to figurative art.

Opening hours: Daily from 12 a.m. to 7 p.m., closed on Monday.
Tickets: free.
Phone: ++39.0814976128