A work by one of Italy’s most important landscape painters, active between the end of the 17th and the first decades of the 18th century. This fascinating painting, dating from around 1705, depicts a wide, open space, characterized by intricate vegetation, rendered with vibrant brushstrokes and an extraordinarily modern touch. A “romantic” atmosphere dominates, but is mitigated by the classic balance that pervades the composition. The figures that populate the landscape, outlined with rapid strokes and dense splashes of colour, reveal the influence of Magnasco, with whom Peruzzini collaborated during his years in Florence between 1703 and 1707, at the court of Ferdinando de 'Medici.

The large night clock signed by Giuseppe Campani, whose internal mechanism (still present) was partially modified during the eighteenth century by Ganzinotto, a watchmaker active in Genoa in the first half of the eighteenth century, is a work of exceptional interest, both from the technical and artistic point of view. In fact, it is one of the very rare signed examples of a projection clock, a type created by Giuseppe Campani for which he obtained a special licence from the Pope in 1668. Thanks to a very powerful lens, the image of the dial was projected on to a wall or ceiling while a special crank escapement rendered the clock silent, seeming a foretaste of the eighteenth-century magic lantern. The monumental shape of the piece is reminiscent of a Baroque altar, while the painted face, depicting an Allegory of the Triumph of Wisdom, is from a student of Carlo Maratta.

In the panorama of eighteenth-century Ligurian majolica, the figure of the ceramicist Giacomo Boselli from Savona stands out. He was responsible for a profound renewal of the local production,  from a technical point of view, as well as in terms of artistic and cultural reference models. As matter of fact, he succeeded in incorporating first the rocaille taste, then that of the subsequent Louis XVI style and then on to an early adoption of the nascent Neoclassicism that was spreading in Europe towards the end of the century. Attentive to the international scene, he faced ever-increasing competition from French and then English earthenware manufacturers, he also introduced important innovations to traditional techniques, for example by applying the "third fire" procedure to his majolica. A third firing at a lower temperature that allowed the fixing of bright colours, much admired in the eighteenth century, such as purplish red, emerald green and gold. This jug, with its elegant Rococo shape, is a typical example of the best "third fire" production of the Boselli workshop, which interprets with sobriety the influences coming from the contemporary Marseille majolica.

The two Moorish slaves from the procession of the Magi, are the work of Pasquale Navone (1746-1791), presented here in a scenographic setting created in 2011, they stand out both as exceptional figures in terms of quality and rarity among the more than 350 figures which make up Matteo Luxoro’s favourite collection. Here the figures are presented in their role as “participants” rather than as static wooden sculptures forming a scene, returning them to the role for which their creator intended them. The use of articulated mannequin figures, with glass eyes, fabric clothing (more rarely with artificial hair wigs), arranged in elaborate scenes, alongside entirely sculpted and polychrome figures transformed the nativity display into an ephemeral presentation that was somewhere between a tableau vivant and a theatrical representation. Each figure was dressed according to the character, to emphasize their role and create "communication" between the various protagonists - commoners, shepherds, nobles and the entourage of the Magi – all in ecstatic admiration of the mystery of the Nativity.

This precious example of eighteenth-century Ligurian furniture is characterized by the quality of its veneers made with exotic woods, which create a delicate luminous effects, forming phytomorphic motifs typical of local cabinet-making, such as the famous "four-leaf clover". Inspired by French models, this chest of drawers stands out for the sobriety with which the shapes of the rocaille style are interpreted, in line with the then current Ligurian taste. The bronze decoration, which is original, emphasizes the curvilinear form of the piece which is part of a matching group of fine eighteenth-century furnishings collected by the Luxoro family, probably originally coming from residences of the Ligurian nobility.

Licini was born in 1894 in Monte Vidon Corrado, in the Marche region, and his artistic and cultural education took place in Italy and France. His presence in Paris at the end of the Twenties was at the root of his decision to abandon his “realist” approach - centred on landscape painting with a distinct Cezanne influence - to focus on abstract painting. As a result of his contact with the Abstraction-Création group, in around 1931 he produced his first abstract works, in which both a deep knowledge of the work of Kandinsky and Klee and an innate sense of line can be detected. The artist became part of the circle of the Milan gallery Il Milione and, in an open letter written on the occasion of his solo exhibition of 1935 and published in the gallery's Bulletin no. 35, he clarifies the lyrical and imaginative approach to his work: “We will show that geometry can become feeling”. Maria Cernuschi Ghiringhelli, considered by Carlo Belli to be Licini’s muse and discoverer, immediately fell in love with his art, and it was the Licini works she bought in 1942 that set in motion her painting “collection”. 1933’s “Ritmo” presents the characteristics of the abstract Licini, conscious of geometry but with an intensity of colour capable of disrupting the compositional structure, expressing itself in pictorially vibrant surfaces.  
(Michela Murialdo)

Even in the brief span of a few years, from 1957 to February 1963, the figure of Piero Manzoni would permanently revolutionise how art is made and conceived.

From his debut in the informal sphere of the Nuclear movement to his encounter with Lucio Fontana in Albisola and the lesson taken from Yves Klein’s Monochromes, the artist moved towards more experimental research, specifying his theories on art as “scientifically-based procedure” in 4 manifestos.

The first Achrome is from 1957: a casting of gesso and Kaolin on the canvas with a still informal wall-like effect, but one in which the artist's intervention is kept to a minimum. This series of works was designed as “one single uninterrupted surface” where the material becomes the focus on canvas in squares or wrinkled up: “...a white surface that is simply a white surface and nothing else (a colourless surface that is just a colourless surface). Better than that: a surface that simply is: to be (and to be complete is pure becoming)”. His experiments with Achromes continued over the years: they would incorporate objects, straw, wood, stone, bread rolls, establishing themselves as living entities, independent of the will of the artist himself, becoming increasingly synthetic, in fibreglass, plastic and polystyrene balls, and self-generating, with polystyrene soaked in cobalt chloride whose colours change with the changing of the weather conditions.

The work of art also surrenders its object status and shows itself only as concept in his subsequent works, Linee (Lines), Corpi d’aria (Bodies of air), Fiato d’artista (Artist’s breath), Impronte (Fingerprints).

The sensation caused by the Linee, culminating in an episode in which a visitor spat in outrage on the displayed work, did not stop the artist from continuing on his path towards the elimination of every psycho-existential reference, in order to reflect on the artist/production means relationship; partly thanks to the Azimut gallery and its associated magazine, opened in 1959 in Milan, with Enrico Castellani.

It was at this gallery in 1960 that the event Consumazione dell’arte dinamica del pubblico divorare l’arte (Consumption of Art by the Art-Devouring Public) was presented, considered to be the first ‘happening’ in Italy, at which hard-boiled eggs imprinted with the artist's thumbprint were distributed to the public to be eaten.

The controversy surrounding the commercialisation of art and the cult of authorship would influence further projects in those years; the Sculture viventi (Living sculptures) of 1961, in which anyone could receive the status of “work of art” thanks to the artist’s signature; the 3 magic bases, the last of which was created in Denmark, the Socle du monde n. 3 - Hommage a Galileo (Base of the world no. 3 - Homage to Galileo), an upturned pedestal supporting the Earth; and the 90 cans of Merda d’artista (Artist’s shit), one of the artist’s most notorious and provocative works.

The artist's body, the observer, the whole world becomes a work of art, bringing about the radical change for which Manzoni was the exponent: “One cannot leave the ground just by running and jumping; one needs wings; changes are not sufficient; the transformations must be total”.

Flavio Favelli (Florence, 1967) currently lives and works in Savigno, in the province of Bologna.

In his works, the artist places the physical space and the mental space on the same level, creating installations capable of acting directly on the perception of the observer. The use of old furniture and everyday objects allow latent emotions to emerge, thus revealing the most intimate and hidden aspects of our everyday life. Exhibited for the first time at Villa Croce in 2005, for the second stage of the “Four Rooms” project, Specchiera became part of the Villa Croce collection. The objects proposed by the artist always arise out of a singular interference between something in existence and an interior reality which materialises in “mental objects”, modified to become part of the house and, in a certain sense, “of the mind”. Specchiera, in the 2005 exhibition-project “Prima sala d’aspetto”, was placed over the fireplace in the large entrance hall of Villa Croce. The work consists of a wood frame and fragments of mirror in black, which, incapable of reflecting images, create an interplay of light and shadow, thus displaying hidden, mysterious imagery.
(Michela Murialdo)

Plamen Dejanoff, renowned for his works which spark a short circuit between the art world and the economic market, studied at the Academy of Applied Arts in Sofia and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. From 1994 to 2000 he established a long partnership in both life and work with Swetlana Heger (Brno 1968), creating an artistic company which participated in numerous collective exhibitions, including the 2nd Berlin Biennial.

Since 2001, Plamen has individually continued to explore the themes previously tackled in collaboration with Heger, focusing on the relationship between culture and economy, art and market and, by extension, reaching a fusion of art and life.

His strategy is much closer to the production dynamics of large multinationals than to the working process of an artist. He analyses the mechanisms of corporations - from production to consumption - in order to centre his work on communication.

This reflection on the close ties between art and the economy extends to his personal life, with a global rebranding of his image through a communication campaign, leading to a modification of his surname itself, from Dejanov to Dejanoff.

This premise gave rise to the series “Collective Wishdreams of Upperclass Possibilities”, of which the installation at the museum is a part, exhibited at Liste during the ArtBasel fair in 2003.

Rejecting the distinction between art object and industrial product, Plamen blends elements of architecture, painting, and sculpture: objects taken from the world of design or the output of other artists are no longer an extension of the individuality of those who created them, but autonomous hyper-commodities which provoke desire.

Hence on a shiny blue and white platform, the “objects of desire” - a wheel rim in artificial crystal, a faithful reproduction of the rim of a BMW Z3 Silver, a chair designed by Australian Mark Newson and 3 Vistosi lamps in coloured glass - are offered up to the yearning gaze of the observer, creating a universe of entirely autonomous objects and brands.

After an initial involvement with the Arte Povera movement, invited in 1967 by curator Germano Celant to the first exhibition, "Arte Povera Im-Spazio", held at the Galleria La Bertesca in Genoa, Icaro took his research in a conceptual, minimal direction, in which art becomes a tool for the measuring of man in space and time. In 1968 in New York he created the first Gabbie (Cages), metal bar structures, closely related to the Contrangolo kept at the museum, which create space without occupying it, an “other” space defined by their geometries in pursuit of a balance between the internal and external. This reflection remains a constant throughout his work, and on his return from the United States was revived in his solo exhibition "Faredisfarerifarevedere", again hosted at the La Bertesca gallery. Following a second stay in the United States, interspersed with monthly trips to Calice Ligure where his friend Emilio Scanavino lived and had a small circle of artists, Icaro began to use plaster, which became the medium of choice for his artistic practice, thanks to its malleability, ductility and its ability to retain the imprint of the artist’s gesture intact in the material. The hallmark of Icaro’s latest exhibitions is that they are “no longer just about space, it is a dynamic research”.