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ITALIAN HISTORICAL ABSTRACTIONISM: THE “COMO” CASE
From May 20, 2001 to September 30, 2001

Press release

Civico Museo Parisi Valle in Maccagno (VA) was inaugurated in 1998; this building over the Giona River was especially designed by Roman architect Maurizio Sacripanti and was awarded the national prize “premio Nazionale IN/ARCH 1991-1992”. The museum will host – throughout summer - an exhibit that will focus on the historical aspects of Italian geometric abstractionism.

Two were the environments in Italy where abstractionism developed during the 30’s: the first pivoted on the Galleria del Milione in Milan, while the second was the town of Como, certainly stimulated by Giuseppe Taragni’s rationalist structures.

Four artists stood out: Carla Badiali (1907-1992), Aldo Galli (1906-1981), Mario Radice (1898-1987) e Manlio Rho (1911-1957). Other artists went in the same direction, even if they did so with a different creative intensity: Aristide Bianchi, Cordelia Cattaneo, Alvaro Molteni, Carla Prina, Eligio Torno.  Como represented a fundamental place for non-figurative art of the 30’s and 40’s, and the fact that all these artists – except for Molteni and Galli – could display their works at the Biennale di Venezia in 1942 in the section about futurism is certainly a meaningful recognition.

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C. Badiali Composizione astratta, 1936-37		A. Galli Scultura, 1942		M. Radice Composizione C.F. 123 B, 1934		M. Rho, Composizione 95 R.D.S.A, 1940

The exhibit has as a main reference precisely the 1942 Biennale and is intended to display the liveliness of the artistic environment in Como during those years, so full of initiative and new directions, and to show its uniqueness on the Italian scene. A wide number of works by the four main masters will be displayed, as well as samples of the production by the other artists – mostly the very same works that were displayed at the Biennale.

The exhibition will include a total of around seventy works - paintings, for the major part, even if particularly meaningful drawings will be included too, along with some sculptures by Aldo Galli.
Galli – like Fausto Melotti - is one of the few Italian artists who have worked on geometrical abstractionism.  The focus is mainly on works from the 30’s and 40’s, while only a few works from the early 50’s will be displayed.

These works, selected from private and communal collections (a good deal of works have been borrowed from the communal gallery of Como), well represent the current that developed in that particular period, while architects such as Giuseppe Tarragni, Pietro Lingeri and Cesare Cattaneo were paving the way for architecture as seen from the logic point of view of rationalism.

This is the first exhibit to document the work of abstractionists from Como so thoroughly and it is organized by Luigi Cavadini, who also wrote the text of the catalog. These artists (not all of them, though) were last present at a large public exhibit when their works were displayed in Como at “L’Europa dei Razionalisti,” in 1989.
The exhibition will be open every day except on Mondays from 10.00 to 12.00 am and from 15.00 to 19.00, and will close on September 30, 2001.

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