Surrealism and Italy

WHERE

Magnani-Rocca Foundation,
via Fondazione Magnani Rocca 4,
Mamiano di Traversetolo (Parma).
Google Maps

WHEN

14 September ― 15 December 2024

Also open on 1 November and 8 December.

OPENING HOURS

Tuesday to Friday, continuous 10:00–18:00 (ticket office closes at 17:00) – Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, continuous 10:00–19:00 (ticket office closes at 18:00). Closed on Mondays.

PRICES

€15.00, also valid for the permanent collections
€13.00 for groups of at least fifteen people
€5.00 for schools

INFORMATION AND GROUP BOOKINGS

Tel. +39 0521 848327 / 848148 [email protected]
On Saturdays at 16:00 and on Sundays and public holidays at 11:30, 15:30 and 16:30, there is a visit to the exhibition with a specialist guide; you can book at [email protected], or come to the museum entrance until places run out; cost €20.00 (admission and guide).

RESTAURANT

Tel. +39 0521 1627509
WhatsApp +39 393 7685543
e-mail [email protected]

PARTNERS

The exhibition was made possible thanks to

Media partners: Gazzetta di Parma, Kreativehouse.

With the collaboration of: Angeli Cornici, Bstrò, Cavazzoni Associati, Società per la Mobilità e il Trasporto Pubblico.

14 September – 15 December 2024
Magnani-Rocca Foundation, Mamiano di Traversetolo – Parma

A hundred years ago Surrealism was born, and from that moment the perception of the world would never be the same. With the Manifeste du Surréalisme, published on 15 October 1924 and marking the start of the movement, Breton declares that imagination is nothing other than the revelation of what we are, of our very substance, which is dream, purity, energy, freedom.

And so, in the Villa dei Capolavori, home of the Magnani-Rocca Foundation at Mamiano di Traversetolo near Parma, a few steps from the rooms housing major works by Renoir, Monet, Cézanne, Titian, Dürer, Van Dyck, Goya, Canova, Morandi, Burri and many others, from 14 September to 15 December 2024 one of the most decisive and long-lived avant-gardes of the twentieth century – Surrealism – is celebrated on the centenary of its origin, also presenting its complex relationship with Italian artists and the Italian cultural scene from the late 1920s to the late 1960s.

The major exhibition “Surrealism and Italy” (Il Surrealismo e l’Italia), curated by Alice Ensabella, Alessandro Nigro and Stefano Roffi, through more than 150 works by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst (page in Italian), Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Giorgio de Chirico and his brother Alberto Savinio, Enrico Baj, Fabrizio Clerici, Leonor Fini and other protagonists of this imaginative current, bears witness to the breadth of means and languages of Surrealism and explores its impact and evolution in our country, offering a new and fascinating perspective on a movement that left an indelible mark on the contemporary artistic imagination.
The exhibition unfolds in two main chapters, divided into thematic sections.

International Surrealism and its arrival in Italy

The first chapter aims to present international Surrealism and its arrival in Italy: mediated at first by the work of de Chirico and Savinio on their return from Paris in the 1930s, then represented through the works of the masters of the historic movement, which show a profound aesthetic and formal heterogeneity (abstract and figurative art) as well as a multitude of media (painting, collage, assemblage, photography, ready-made, objets trouvés). Important works by Magritte, Dalí, Man Ray, Ernst, Masson, Miró, Tanguy, Duchamp, Matta and Lam are presented here, in addition to de Chirico.

The Italian Surrealist scene

The second chapter identifies the protagonists of the Italian Surrealist scene, from the 1930s onwards, in order to examine its points of contact with the French group, but also – and above all – to bring out its independence and originality.

In Italy two main tendencies can be seen taking shape: on the one hand, the birth of a group inspired by new artistic practices and in contact with the French group, as can be seen in the works of Sergio Dangelo or Enrico Baj. On the other, a fantastic figurative strand, characterised by the production of visionary works, to which belong, among others, Leonor Fini, Fabrizio Clerici and Stanislao Lepri, for whom the work of de Chirico and Savinio was fundamental. The latter attracted international critics, as shown by their presence in the monographic issue of the American magazine View, published in 1946 and entitled Italian Surrealists.

Finally, particular attention is given to the context in which Surrealism spread in Italy, highlighting the figures and places that made it happen, in particular gallerists (Schwarz, Tazzoli, Cardazzo, Del Corso, Jolas, Sargentini, Brin, etc.) and collectors (Guggenheim, Passaré, etc.).

The Magnani-Rocca Foundation thus invites the public on this fascinating journey, discovering how the Surrealist movement freed the unconscious and transformed the perception of reality, offering new keys for understanding art and life. A celebration that is not only a tribute but a living and current reflection on how psychic automatism continues to influence our present and, quoting Breton once again, to discover that “The marvellous is always beautiful; indeed, only the marvellous is beautiful.”