ROME EXHIBITIONS
- Reviews of all major exhibitions taking place in Rome Italy -

Running Exhibition from December 7th 2004 to February 27th 2005

"Mario Mafai. A calm fever of colours"
PALAZZO VENEZIA, ROMA

The exhibition Imago Urbis Romae has been opened in the suggestive rooms of Palazzo dei Conservatori. It has been promoted by Comune of Rome, Assessorato alle Politiche Culturali - Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali and the curator is Cesare De Seta. Approximately a hundred works are on display, oil paintings, engravings, drawings and water-colours which all together represent the monument grandeur of Rome. The exhibition consists of six sections : Roma Moderna, i Grandi Panorami , le Vedute, Roma Antica, il Tevere e le sue sponde, S. Pietro and il Vaticano. The fist section, dedicated to the theme Roma Moderna, opens with two landscape paintings by Giovanni Paolo Panini, Piazza di Monte Cavallo and Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore, exceptionally granted by the Quirinale, and it ends with the ''analytic vedutism'' of Gaspar van Wittel, whose work demonstrates his topographic accuracy, his strong realism representing urban landscapes and architectures like those depicted in the landscape view of Piazza e Palazzo di Monte Cavallo e Piazza del Popolo. Among these ''landscape views'' can be admired works by Israel Silvestre, Giuseppe Vasi, Julius Eugen Ruhl, Wilhem Noak, Alfred Guesdon. Important works coming from abroad are present in the section "Grandi Panorami" like the extraordinary nine sheet series by Louis-François Cassas belonging to the Bibliothèque Mazarine, for the first time in Italy, the landscape view by Claude Lorrain illustrating Trinità dei Monti from the London National Gallery, and the gorgeous Panorama da Monte Mario by Giovan Battista Lusieri from Wien Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Bildenden Künste. "Roma Antica" is dedicated to the various roman monuments : Fori, Colosseo, Pantheon, Basilica di Massenzio painted by Wilhelm Van Nieulandt, Canaletto belonging to Szépmüvészeti Múzeum in Budapest, Jan Frans Van Bloemen, Bernardo Bellotto, Abraham Louis Ducros from Goethe-Museum in Düsseldorf, François Marius Granet from Musée Granet di Aix-en-Provence and Ippolito Caffi. The last section ''Tevere e le sue sponde'' is dominated by an original and a little eccentric painting coming from Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid Museum : Veduta di Roma con porto fluviale e Castel Sant'Angelo (the landscape view of Rome with its fluvial harbour and Castel Sant'Angelo), signed by IDM, belonging to the followers of Joss de Momper. In the section "San Pietro e il Vaticano" we can admire two important works that are Piazza San Pietro by Panini and Le Mura Vaticane by Thomas Jones.

Opening hours: Dailyfrom Monday to Sunday 9 - 20. Closing time Every Monday January 1 , May 1 , December 25 Ticket office closes 1 hour before closing time.
Tickets: Ticket office is in Piazza del Campidoglio, first floor of Palazzo dei Conservatori. On the occasion of temporary exhibitions taking place at Palazzo Caffarelli the ticket price is increased by a small amount and it includes the exhibitions entrance. Ordinary entrance: Full price € 6,20 (+ € 1,60 exhibition) Reduced € 4,20 (+ € 1,60 exhibition) Exhibition entrance: Full price € 4,20 Reduced € 2,60 Capitolini Card: cumulative ticket Musei Capitolini e Centrale Montemartini (valid 7 days) Full € 8,30 (+ € 1,60 exhibition) Reduced € 6,20 (+ € 1,60 exhibition) Free Entrance Italian citizens and foreigners with same conditions under 18 and over 65. Teachers and students groups holding a list on headed letter-paper of the School and compulsary reservation.
Informations: Information, reservations and conventions Musei Capitolini, Piazza del Campidoglio 1 - 00186 ROME 06 39967800 Information : 24 hours Bookings : Monday-Saturday 9-13.30; 14.30-17.00 06 39080725 Conventions It is also possible to book on-line
ACCESS FOR DISABLED: In Via del Tempio di Giove a flight of steps lead to the entrance of Portico del Vignola, entering on the first floor of Palazzo dei Conservatori; lifts reach the other palace floors. Tabularium is in Via di S. Pietro in Carcere and from here it is possible to reach through a stair the Galleria di Congiunzione and the ground floor of Palazzo Nuovo. Since these entrancies are normally closed to the public, it is necessary to book in advance by calling ph nr 06-67102071.

Running Exhibition from December 7th 2004 to February 27th 2005

"Mario Mafai. A calm fever of colours"
PALAZZO VENEZIA, ROMA

It has just opened the exhibition "Mario Mafai. A calm fever of colours" in the big spaces of the prestigious roman seat of Palazzo Venezia. There is the exhibition of 88 works considered his best works, which come from museums and private collections, and which show the whole artistic activity of this artist, from the beginning of the 1920 until 1965, year of his death. These works show also his collaboration with Scipione and Antonietta Raphael, and the creation with Roberto Longhi of the "Scuola di via Cavour" in the end of 1920. Mario Mafai (1902-1965) is a painter of landscapes, and often the main character of his paintings is Rome: Rome and its suburbs, Rome during its re-building and the hard period after the World War, its markets and also its Resistance. Mafai's painting is not official but always bound with history; a way of painting which little by little destroys the forms, until the reaching of a vivid colour which is expression, far from the simple representation. In the exhibition there are "Lessons of Piano", prize winner at the Four-yearly in 1935; "Models in the studio", which won the Bergamo's premium in 1940; the cycle of "Imaginations", shown immediately after the liberation of Rome in the exhibition called "Art against brutalities"; the works already shown in his personal room in the Bienal of 1948 and 1958 and that shown in the Galleries "The Comet"( in the end of 1930) and "The Turtle"(1957/1959). It is also possible to see, near the paintings, a little documentary called "I am not another one. The art of Mario Mafai", which talks about the artistic and human story of this painter of the Roman school.

Opening hours: Daily from Tuesday to Saturday 10.00-19.00
Tickets:
Informations: Palazzo Venezia Museum, Piazza Venezia, Roma
Phone:

Running Exhibition from November 11th 2004 to February 27th 2005

"The italian impressionist Giuseppe de Nittis"
PALAZZO VENEZIA, ROMA

It has been opened in Rome at the Chiostro del Bramante an anthologic and retrospective exhibition dedicated to Giuseppe de Nittis. It has been chosen for this exhibition the most important works among the whole production of this artist (180 paintings and about 25 woks on paper) and also some unknowns De Nittis has been defined from critics "Southerner in the South, French in Paris and Londoner in London" and today he represents one of the most important step in picture during the nineteenth century in Italy. Already in 1877 Henry Houssaye considered de Nittis "the chief or the master of the new school of the painters who painted en plain air. He has spirit, colour, a real knowledge of the line perspective and the gift of the air perspective". The exhibition opens with the "Self-portrait" (1833), which wants to be an invitation to enter in his house as in his work, and goes developed in nine sections, elaborating a complete and exhaustive journey of his activity. The titles of the sections often come from expressions caught from the painter's note book or from some definitions made by his friends as Edmondo De Goncourt or Jules Clarétie. While in France the impressionists paint the life en plain air and that of ville lumière, de Nittis keeps out to date himself and his training by travelling and noting on different note-books his impressions about landscapes, cities and weather. In exhibition indeed, there are his studies about Nature, done during his numerous stays in Napoli, his concrete researches about the representation of the light, the paintings dedicated to the Vesuvio, which portray the famous eruption in 1872, the trains at the carriages, the crossing of the English channel to join London with the new Steamboat, and, at least, the drawing room's society life and the feminine beauty. The main part of the exhibition comes from the Local Museum Art Gallery G. de Nittis in Barletta, which has the donation of the artist's works by his wife Léontine. Really important loans come from the Cimac in Milan, from the Museum Revoltella in Trieste, from the Ricci Oddi Gallery in Piacenza, from the Carnavalet Museum in Paris and from many Italian and foreign private collections.

Opening hours: Daily from Monday to Sunday 16.00-20.00. Tuesday and Thursday 16:00-21:00. Friday and Saturday 16:00-24:00. Monday closed.
Tickets: full price 9 €; reduced 6 € (Tuesday FOR Everyone). Groups with more than 20 persons: 6 €. Schools: € 4.50
Informations: Chiostro del of Bramante, Via della Pace, Roma
Phone: ++39.0668809035 - 0668809035

Running Exhibition from March 3rd to June 5th 2005

"The italian impressionist Giuseppe de Nittis"
PALAZZO VENEZIA, ROMA

Opening hours: Daily from Sunday to Thursday 10.00-20.00; Friday and Saturday 10.00-22.30.
Tickets: full price 9 €; reduced 6 €
Informations: Scuderie del Quirinale, via XXIV Maggio, 16, Roma
Phone: 06/696270

VITTORIANO MONUMENT Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele Vittoriano Piazza Venezia - Roma

A personal exhibition devoted to Edgar Degas (1834-1917) has been opened at Complesso del Vittoriano of Rome. Degas has always been considered an impressionist but to tell the truth he is very original with regard to the Batignolles group. No art has ever been as spontaneous as mine, used to say Degas to add: "What I do is the result of meditation and study of the Great Masters". Degas, on one hand used to study and copy the classics almost obsessively and on the other hand he updated his pointing by putting it in a contemporary dimension where modern life is depicted in its variety, in its most hidden and less pleasant aspects, as in the Assenzio for example. The acquaintance with Manet in 1862 at the Louvre has for sure been decisive for the painter, who unlive the impressionists liked to paint urban life (cafés, the ballet-dancers, the theatre, the horses-race) representing it in paintings made in his studio and not on plain air or sur le motif as Monet or the other impressionists used to do. Nonetheless Degas can be considered a true impressionist, thanks to his ability in depicting the events temporariness the binomial drawing-colour and in interpreting reality in its entireness and space-time continuity. More than 170 works are on display: besides his most famous oils and pastels we can see drawings and photographs and the entire collection of sculptures belonging to Museu de Arte di S. Paolo in Brasile.

Opening hours: Daily from Monday to Wednesday 9.30 a.m.-7.30 p.m.; Friday and e Saturday 9.30a.m.-11.30 p.m. ; Sunday 9.30 a.m.-8.30 p.m.
Tickets: 9 €; special prize 6.50 €
Informations: Roma - Complesso del Vittoriano, Via S.Pietro in Carcere (Fori Imperiali)
Phone: 06/6780664

Running Exhibition till May 1st 2005
"Nunzio
Jenny Saville"
MACRO, Roma

Two new exhibitions dedicated to Nunzio and Jenny Saville and curated by Danilo Eccher have been opened at MACRO . The first one devoted to the Italian sculptor Nunzio, takes place in one of the four MACRO rooms where water-colours, wood and painted plaster sculptures are on display. The artist work shows how important is space and the real placing of forms in rooms involving a phisical and visual level. At a certain point of his life Nunzio will abandon plaster working to concentrate on wood qualities developing a skill to paint through a material combustion process; the artist also relentlessly experiments lead potentiality as an opaque surface capable of interacting with light effects and with space. Besides the Venice Biennale, Nunzio has taken part in many personal and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad among which are to be mentioned Extemporanea, Galleria L'Attico, Roma (1984); Prospect 89, Francoforte (1989); Kodama Gallery, Osaka (1994); Galleria d'Arte Moderna- Villa delle Rose, Bologna (1995); Nunzio, Galleria Fumagalli, Bergamo (2000). In the MACRO Panorama rooms a selection of twenty works by a 34 years old English artist Jenny Saville, who has successfully attended the Young British School, is on display. Her teachers might as well have being Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon, since the themes she confronts herself with, are always linked with the body and especially the woman body and examined by reading feminist movement essays. Ten drawings and six new oils representing animal carcasses, women faces and bodies which will or have undergone aestheitc surgery, are on display. Jenny Saville , who was born in Cambridge in 1970 and got a degree at the Glasgow School of Art, lives between London and Palermo. Her first exhibition was entirely bought by Galleria Saatchi in London. She has been awarded international prizes and she takes part in many personal and collective exhibitions like British Institute Prize for Painting, Royal Academy, London 1991, "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection", London 1997; "Territories" at Gagosian Gallery, New York 1999; "The Nude in Contemporary Art", at The Aldridge Museum of Art, Connecticut, 1999; "Ant Noises 2" Saatchi Gallery, London 2000, "Disparities and Deformations, Our Grotesque" at la Quinta Biennale Internazionale di SantaFè, New Mexico, 2004.

Opening hours: Daily from Tuesday to Sunday 9.00-19.00; festivities 9.00-14.00; closed on Monday.
Tickets: 1 €;, free under 18 and over 65.
Informations: MACRO, via Reggio Emilia, 54- Rome Ph. 06/67.10.70.400 www.macro.roma.museum
Phone: 06/671070400

LAST EXHIBITIONS AT MACRO

Running Exhibition from October 10th to January 1st2 005
"PICASSO E LA SUA EPOCA - DONAZIONI A MUSEI AMERICANI"

An exhibition that makes a comparison between Pablo Picasso's works (1881-1973) and those of artists living in the same age, has been opened. The Spanish master has been one of the most important for his time and for the turning points of contemporary art. Pepe Karmel, Professor of the Department of Fine Arts at New York University, and organiser of the event , has chosen to exhibit works that can fully represent the artist stylistic path : from the ''Protocubist'' period to the one called ''Analytic Cubism'' showing a splitting up of layers aimed more at presenting than representing reality; the third section is devoted to the period called ''Analytic'' which began in 1910, showing a recomposition displaying more synthesis than analysis and finally ''the order return'' belonging to the post-war period. Then we have the classicist turning point followed by the surrealist period. Thanks to the cooperation of many American Institutions, at the exhibition are on display works by : Louis Bouche, Stuart Davis, Charles Demunt, Lionel Feininger, Roger de la Fresnaye, Albert Leon Gleizes, Arshile Gorky, Auguste Herbin, Alexey Jawlensky, Alexander Kanoldt, William de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Stanton Macdonald Wright, Jackson Pollock, Morgan Russell, Joaquin Torres Garcia, Alice Trumbull Mason, Georges Braque, Joan Miró e Max Weber.

Opening hours: 9.30-19.30 . closing time of the ticket desk : 19.30 (closing time of the exhibition : 20.30). Closed on Monday
Tickets: full price 8 euros; reduced 6 euros 30 October 2004 - 8 January 2005
Information: Fondazione Memmo, Palazzo Ruspoli, Via del Corso, 418 Roma.
Phone: + 39 066874704

Running Exhibition from 29 November 2004 to 13 February 2005
"Papi in posa. Dal Rinascimento a Giovanni Paolo II"

On the occasion of the 26° anniversary of the election of Giovanni Paolo II as a pope. The exhibition "Papi in posa. Dal Rinascimento a Giovanni Paolo II" curated by Maria Elisa Tittoni, Francesco Petrucci and Francesco Buranelli, has been recently opened. The exhibition, set up at Palazzo Braschi, which is the Museo di Roma seat shows the Pope's faces who have reigned from 1500 up to now and it wants to explain the historical and cultural context of their period through the temporal and religious power. The most important works on display are the Portrait of Gregorio XV of Gian Lorenzo Bernini belonging to Museo Civico Medievale of Bologna, the Portrait of Urbano VIII of Pietro da Cortona belonging to Musei Capitolini, the painting of Papa Alessandro VII to the procession of Corpus Domini belonging to Museé des Beaux Arts of Nancy; the Portrait of Clemente XIII of Anton Raphael Mengs belonging to Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna.

Opening hours: rom Tuesday to Sunday: 9.00 a.m. - 7.00 p.m.; Monday closed. Closed on Monday
Tickets: Museum entrance: €6,20, special price €3,10, free for citiziens of UE under 18 or over 65 years. The ticket office closed to 6 p.m.
Information: MUSEO DI ROMA - PALAZZO BRASCHI, Via Di San Pantaleo (00186) Roma
Phone: + 39 068207730