Day by day in art | August 12, 2022
The Getty will give us back a sculptural group from Taranto of the fourth century BC and 4 other works | An exhibit in Minneapolis to encourage a return from Minneapolis | Thanner staircase removed from Stephansdom in Vienna | Warhol’s heirs auction off early works by the artist | At the Egyptian Museum of Turin a restoration and a new room | The day in 10 news items
The Getty Museum will return to Italy a sculptural group from Taranto of the fourth century BC On 11 August the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles announced that it will return to Italy a sculptural group, datable between 350 and 300 BC and referable to a Taranto production, depicting a seated poet with two mermaids, a group of life-size terracotta figure also known as “Orpheus and the sirens”. The Museum is also collaborating with the Ministry of Culture to organize the return, at a later date, of four other objects: a colossal marble head of a divinity from the 2nd century AD, a stone mold from the 2nd century AD for the casting of pendants, an oil painting entitled “Oracle at Delphi”, from 1881, by Camillo Miola, and a thymiaterion (incense burner) in Etruscan bronze from the 4th century BC In accordance with the return policy adopted by the Getty in cases where reliable information that the objects have been stolen or illegally excavated, the Museum has removed these objects from the exhibition halls and is preparing them for transport to Rome in September. “Thanks to information provided by Matthew Bogdanos and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who ascertained the illegal excavation of Orpheus and the sirens, we have decided that these items must be returned.Said Timothy Potts, director of the Getty Museum. [Redazione]
An exhibit in Minneapolis to encourage a return from Minneapolis. In Florence, protests by art historians and cultural associations for the next exhibition in October in the USA, at Mia, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, of 45 Renaissance masterpieces from the Uffizi, including Botticelli’s “Minerva and the Centaur”. The protests really want the American museum that does not want to return, in a long-standing dispute, the large sculpture of “Doriforo Stabiae”, a marble colossus almost two meters high from the 1st century BC, stolen from the museum of Castellammare di Stabia and reappeared in the museum American in 1986. For years Stabia and the Italian government has replaced his return: a few weeks ago the Minister of Cultural Heritage, Dario Franceschini, re-launched the appeal for the return of the masterpiece to the Archaeological Museum of Stabia. Yesterday the mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, declared that “this exhibition in Minneapolis can be an opportunity to reopen the chapter and use the loan as an availability card that Italy offers for the return to Italy of the Doryphoros“. [Tina Lepri]
The Thanner staircase from the Stephansdom was dismantled in Vienna. It was supposed to be a temporary installation lasting a few weeks, and instead it remained for over a year, thanks to great acclaim also from the tourism industry. Leaning against the cusp of the south tower of the Cathedral of Santo Stefano to celebrate Easter 2021 in the sign of hope, the long staircase in and neon tubes with golden light, created by the artist Billi Thanner and aluminum inspired by the “Jacob’s ladder”, seemed now an integral part of the night skyline of Vienna. I liked the strong and clear symbolism of a ladder stretched towards the sky to the point of inducing Toni Faber, chief parish priest of the highest Austrian church and client of the work, to postpone its dismantling several times. But now the clergyman has put an end to it, at least for Austria. The installation will have a second life in Münster, Germany, where from 3 September it will shine on the Lambertikirche, while a variant with changing colors will be mounted on the Seefels castle on the banks of the Wörthersee, in a dominant position on the Carinthian lake. [Flavia Foradini]
Warhol’s heirs auction off works that the artist made as a student. According to rumors of insiders, Andy Warhol’s family plans to put up for sale a group of ten paintings that the artist made between 1945 and 1949 while studying at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University) in Pittsburgh. Among the works there are some abstractions, a genre that the artist would soon abandon, and «Nosepicker 1», from 1948, considered to be Warhol’s first self-portrait. The works, which Warhol left at his parents’ house when he moved from Pittsburgh in 1949, are mainly tempera on wood, with the exception of the watercolor on paper “Living Room”, 1947, and the oil on panel “I Like Dance. », Of the same year. [Redazione]
Christian Greco: “We restore the Turin Papyrus and open a new beautiful room at the Egyptian”. The director of the Egyptian Museum of Turin Christian Greco, together with an international team has restored the papyrus known as the Royal Canon. The scientific project is the result of a joint elaboration between the restorer Myriam Krutzsch of the Neues Museum, Professor Kim Ryholt of the University of Copenhagen, Rob Demaree of the University of Leiden, the curator of the Egyptian Museum Susanne Toepfer and Sara Demichelis, of the Superintendence Turin. The work will be placed in the center of a new room of the Egyptian Museum, the Room of the Scripture, which will open on 6 December. [Redazione]
An international “call for papers” to investigate and enhance the artistic personality and genius of Luigi Vanvitelli in its multifaceted aspects. The Royal Palace of Caserta launches an invitation to scholars from all over the world to become protagonists of the International Conference of Studies entitled “Luigi Vanvitelli, the Master and his legacy”, on the occasion of the Vanvitellian celebrations. In 2023 will be the 250th anniversary of the death of the architect Luigi Vanvitelli who conceived the majestic project of the Royal Palace. For this occasion, the Royal Palace and the Municipality of Caserta have elaborated a program of celebrations declined in a plurality of initiatives. One of the foreseen is the «call for papers» for scholars to collect research contributions (with a specific section «Young researchers») on this fundamental activity for the figure of the artistic and cultural panorama. The International Study Conference will take place in March at the Royal Palace. Scholars may interest contributions to a multiplicity of topics to portray the man, the architect, the engineer, the musicologist, the inventor, the can clarify the religious, or any element that can clarify the value and transversality of the inheritance. of him. Abstracts can be submitted by November 30, 2022. Sono available online all information on how to participate. [Redazione]
The new director of the National Gallery of Ireland is Caroline Campbell, an expert in Italian ancient painting. The National Gallery of Ireland has announced that Caroline Campbell will be its next director. Campbell, born in Belfast, will be the first woman to rule the Dublin institution since its foundation in 1864. Since 2018, head of collections and research at the National Gallery in London, where she is also curator of Italian paintings before 1500, Campbell in November he will receive the baton from Sean Rainbird, who has led the Dublin museum for the past ten years. [Redazione]
Federica Timossi new director of the Sarsina Museum, the Roman villa in Russi and the Forlimpopoli Museum. The archaeologist Federica Timossi has assumed, from 1 August, the directions of the National Archaeological Museum of Sarsina (Fc), the archaeological area of the Roman Villa of Russi and the Archaeological Museum of Forlimpopoli (managed by the Municipality of Forlimpopoli). “It is an important step, commented the Regional Director of Museums Emilia-Romagna Giorgio Cozzolino, to maintain a scientific continuity of a high professional profile after the direction of Alessandro Marchi, who has curated these museum sites in recent years with his historical-artistic skills and he left the service for retirement“. [Redazione]
Roberto Cantagalli, 53 years old from Ravenna, since September he has been the cultural head of the Municipality of Ravenna and the new director of the Mar – Ravenna Art Museum. Cantagalli has a legal background, with a degree in 1994 from Alma Mater, then moves towards public administration: to the Municipality of Cervia (Ra) from 2006 to 2014 as head of the Tourism Service, following the Municipality of Comacchio (Fe) where he is manager of the Personal Services, Tourism and Cultural Institutes Sector. [Stefano Luppi]
Farewells
Cartoonist and cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé died in his country house at the age of 89 on 11 August., creator, together with René Goscinny, one of Asterix’s fathers, of Little Nicolas, a character who accompanied the childhood of generations of French people. Sempé also signed other covers of “The New Yorker”, “Paris Match” of “L’Express” and other important newspapers. He is considered one of the inventors of the “graphic novels”, which he made as early as the 1950s.