Ritmo

Maria Cernuschi Ghiringhelli 1990

Osvaldo Licini (Monte Vidon Corrado, 1894-1958)

782

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 21; Larghezza: 29

olio su tela incollata su tavola

Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Genova collezione Cernuschi Ghiringhelli - Villa Croce, Genova - 1991<br>Osvaldo Licini. Dipinti e disegni - Ascoli Piceno - 1988<br>Il Milione e l'Astrattismo, 1932 - 1938 - Fermo - 1988<br>Osvaldo Licini - Acqui Terme - 1985<br>1930 - 1980 Astrattismo in Italia nella raccolta Cernuschi Ghiringhelli - Villa Croce, Genova - 1985<br>Annitrenta. Arte e Cultura in Italia - P. Reale, P. Arengario e Galleria del Sagrato (MI) - 1982<br>O. Licini - Galleria Lorenzelli, Milano - 1982<br>Anni creativi al Milione 1932 - 1939 - Palazzo Novellucci, Prato - 1980<br>Lazzari Melotti Licini - Galleria Arte Centro, Milano - 1978<br>O. Licini - Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, Torino - 1968 - 1969<br>Arte moderna in Italia 1915-1936 - Firenze - 1967<br>XXXIII Biennale internazionale d'arte di Venezia - Venezia - 1966<br>Proprietà Evidenti dell'astrattismo - Galleria Minima, Milano - 1963<br>Mostra collettiva di arte astratta in Italia - Torino - 1935

Licini decided to pursue abstract painting during his studies in Paris in the late 1920s. 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 and conscious of geometry.

Achrome

Maria Cernuschi Ghiringhelli 1990

Piero Manzoni (Soncino, 1933 - Milano, 1963)

698

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 50; Larghezza: 30

Caolino su tela

Astrattismo in Italia nella raccolta Cernuschi Ghiringhelli - Villa Croce, Genova - 1985<br>Manzoni, opere uniche - galleria Cenobio - Visualità, Milano - 1967

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.

Specchiera

Flavio Favelli (Firenze, 1967)

4042

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 138; Larghezza: 131

cornice in legno

mostra-progetto “Prima sala d’aspetto” - museo di Villa Croce, Genova - 2005<br>seconda tappa del progetto itinerante "Four Rooms" - museo di Villa Croce, Genova - 2005

In his works Flavio Favelli places the physical space and the mental space on the same level, creating installations capable of acting 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, 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, was placed over the fireplace in the large entrance hall of Villa Croce. The work, incapable of reflecting images, create an interplay of light and shadow, thus displaying hidden, mysterious imagery.

Collective Wishdreams of Upperclass Possibilities

2004

Plamen Dejanoff (Veliko Tarnovo, 1970)

3191

Tecnica mista

ArtBasel, Basel - 2003

Plamen Dejanoff analyzes the mechanisms of corporations-from production to consumption-to focus his artistic work on communication. Reflection on the connections between art and economics invests his own life, with a global redefinition of his image through a communication campaign that leads him to change his own surname, from Dejanov to Dejanoff. These premises gave rise to the Collective Wishdream of Upperclass Possibilities series of which the museum installation is a part. Rejecting the distinction between art object and industrial product, Plamen fuses elements of architecture, painting, and sculpture: objects taken from the world of design or from the production of other artists are no longer extensions of the individuality of their creator, but autonomous hypermachines that generate desire.

Controangolo

Maria Cernuschi Ghiringhelli 1990

Paolo Icaro (Torino, 1936)

652

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 58; Larghezza: 58; Profondità: 164

Acciaio e lustrini

galleria Gastadelli, Milano - 1976<br>Faredisfarerifarevedere - La Bertesca, Genova<br>Astrattismo in Italia nella raccolta Cernuschi Ghiringhelli - Villa Croce, Genova - 1985

Icaro evolves his research in a conceptual and minimalist direction, in which art becomes a tool for measuring man in space and time. In 1968 in New York he created the first Gabbie, 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 in his work and is revived, on his return from the United States. Following a second stay in the United States, interspersed with monthly trips to Calice Ligure, 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. Icaro's latest exhibitions are under the sign of “no longer just about space, it is a dynamic research”.

Piatto savonese

Maria Cernuschi Ghiringhelli 1989

Lucio Fontana (Rosario de Santa Fé, 1899 - Comabbio, 1968)

625

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 4,5; Diametro: 47

terracotta incisa con buchi

Astrattismo in Italia nella raccolta Cernuschi Ghiringhelli - Villa Croce, Genova - 1985

The Piatto shows Lucio Fontana's interest in a ductile material like ceramics and his connection to the Albisola environment, where he lived in the late 1940s. In Albisola the artist had a small studio from 1947 to 1960 in Pozzo Garitta and used to frequent the Mazzotti manufactory. This sculpture, along with the work Uovo nero orizzontale, were exhibited in the museum's first opening exhibition in February 1985. These two works (Piatto Savonese and Uovo nero orizzontale) were called the “Virginie” by the artist and bear, engraved on the patinated terracotta, the well-known sign-gesture, the artist's stylistic signature.

Uovo nero orizzontale

Maria Cernuschi Ghiringhelli 1990

Lucio Fontana (Rosario de Santa Fé, 1899 - Comabbio, 1968)

626

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 21; Larghezza: 31; Profondità: 22

terracotta con buco e taglio

Centro internaz. di ric. estet. casa del Tasso, TO - 1962<br>Astrattismo in Italia nella raccolta Cernuschi Ghiringhelli - Villa Croce, Genova - 1985

Uovo nero orizzontale shows Lucio Fontana's interest in a ductile material like ceramics and his connection to the Albisola environment, where he lived in the late 1940s. In Albisola the artist had a small studio from 1947 to 1960 in Pozzo Garitta and used to frequent the Mazzotti manufactory. This sculpture, along with the work Piatto savonese were exhibited in the museum's first opening exhibition in February 1985; the Uovo was connected to the Nature series and was set up with its vertical twin, then in Gio Pomodoro's collection. These two works (Piatto Savonese and Uovo nero orizzontale) were called the “Virginie” by the artist and bear, engraved on the patinated terracotta, the well-known sign-gesture, the artist's stylistic signature.

Portrait of Giovanni Antonio Queirolo

Giovanni Enrico Vaymer, called Mulinaretto (Genova, 1665 - 1738)

painting

Night-day clock

famiglia Luxoro 1945 Genova - legato

Giovanni Pietro Callin, second half of the 17th century

clock

Cardboard cut-outs for nativity scenes

ambito lombardo

Lombardy, 18th century

M.G.L. 832 - 851

Unità di misura: UNR

cartone dipinto

Among the rarities present in the crib collections of the museum, a particular place is occupied by this group of large silhouette figures, which is missing the characters of the Holy family. They are made on outlined cardboard, painted in tempera and are presented here in a modern and suggestive scenographic setting. The figures belong to a series that was particularly successful in the second half of the 18th century in the Lombard area, where Francesco Londonio’s (1723-1783) work warrants particular note.