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.

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”.

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 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.

The Luxoro Museum has an interesting collection of portraits, among which various paintings by Vaymer stand out, a master who, absorbed the influence of contemporary French painting, revitalising the local portrait tradition, inspired by the models of Van Dyck he introduced new compositional schemes and a less stately, more realistic and “colloquial” presentation of his subjects. The gentleman portrayed, whose name is legible in an inscription at the bottom left of the painting, communicates his personality immediately, thanks in part to the meticulously executed features and facial expression, rendered with remarkable realism using dense and luminous colours

In the vast and important collection of clocks in the Museum, some specimens signed by the Nordic watchmaker Giovanni Pietro Callin, who was active in Genoa in the second half of the seventeenth century, stand out. This example, complete with its original mechanism and decorated with gilded bronzes, presents a face in painted copper, depicting a fine landscape and animated by a pair of cherubs holding a flowery wreath. The clock, thanks to the signature on the mechanism, can be traced back to the activity of the Callin workshop. Giovanni Battista is probably one of Pietro Callin's sons because his signature appears in full on a clock that recently appeared on the antiques market and can be dated to the early 18th century. The painted exhibition, only the upper part with the putti bearing garlands of flowers, has been dubiously referred to Giovanni Lorenzo Bertolotto. Night-day clock with a case topped by a pediment with three figures of cherubs in gilded cast bronze. Four bronze satyrs are placed at the corners of the base, which features a central decorative element formed by an embossed and saddled bronze plate. On the display there is a trapezoidal opening on which the night-time hour can be read, while the dial for daytime hours is painted white with Roman numerals and features a gilded metal alarm clock dial inside. The hour hand is in gilded metal, while the alarm clock hand is in iron.

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.

The Pittor pitocco, a late work by Alessandro Magnasco, was probably produced after his return to his homeland, which took place in 1735, towards the end of a life full of wandering and enriching cultural experiences. It is a sort of symbolic self-portrait, in which the artist, depicting himself at the centre of a group of beggars, gypsies, ragged children and soldiers, returns to a particular setting to portray the dramatic and anti-rhetorical themes which he developed during his stays in Florence and Milan and through his contact with the culture of the Enlightenment. In the scene, teeming with small figures who seem to emerge with difficulty from the darkness, characters appear who are recurrent in the work of the great painter, such as the gypsy breast feeding a child, the cripple and the musicians slightly to the rear of the scene, intent on improvising what appears to be a parody of a "concert". In the painting, the debt to Callot's engravings, studied during his stay in Florence, is evident, particularly in the scratchy mark and the strong, violent contrasts of light and shadow, as well as the particular characterisation of the characters' attitudes. At the court of Grand Duke Ferdinand, Magnasco had the opportunity to confront himself with Sebastiano Ricci, with whom he shared several collaborations, which would influence the evolution of his pictorial stroke and the rendering of the landscape. Important literary references can also be recognised in the work in question for the choice of subject matter, in particular the literature of the pitocchi and the picaresque novel. The painter draws on the former in his choice of subjects (ragamuffins, soldiers, gypsies, outcasts), and in his particular analysis of the picaro's way of life. The second is an inspiration for the tale of the methods of fraud, of the tricks adopted by these characters to make a living. The theme of the ‘pittor pitocco’ depicted in the scene intent on painting has already been adopted by the artist in earlier works, as has the theme of soldiers and pitocchi set in a geographical environment, often characterised by ancient buildings in ruins, as in the ‘Cantastorie’ preserved in Stoccarda. The painting can be placed in the last years of Magnasco's (formerly Franchini-Guelfi) production, after his return to Genoa in 1735 and his experiences in Florence and Milan. This late dating is due to the already very fringed brushstroke recognisable in the painting, close to the manner of the ‘Retaining’ in Palazzo Bianco, also painted in the last years spent in the Ligurian capital. The debt to Peruzzini's landscapes is also evident, in the disintegration of the descriptive datum and in the vibrant pointillism that characterises them; a language that Magnasco makes his own but which in his late production is translated into a faster, more perfunctory and allusive vision, marked by violent touches of light that highlight certain details in a theatrical manner. Gypsies, beggars and soldiers populate a landscape shrouded in darkness, from which emerge the solitary ruins of ancient buildings. At the centre of the composition, the artist places a painter captured in the act of beginning to paint a canvas that will perhaps depict the world around him; around him are a young mother breastfeeding, some soldiers at rest, cripples, children playing and a group of musicians intent on entertaining them.

 

The Genoese had settled in Cembalo (Balaklava), on the Crimean coast, from at least 1344. The possession of the colony lasted, almost continuously, until the City’s fall in 1475. The plaque recalls that at the fall of Constantinople, new works of fortification were initiated which  would  come to define the appearance of the colony.
Mounted on one of the towers, the plaque was removed by the Italian Bersaglieri in 1855, during the Crimean War; General Alfonso La Marmora then donated it to Genoa.

 

   

In the eighteenth century, compared to the preceding two centuries, the eastern Mediterranean was no longer a hostile coast. Trade and commerce resumed, even if the “Sublime Porte” tended to favour a secular ally: France.

Although in decline, the Ottoman empire still dominated various European “peoples” who had not yet recognized themselves as sovereign states: but nationalism smouldered amidst the ashes and it would not be long before it exploded. Among them the Greeks.