December 19, 2018 at 5:00 PM
PALAZZO NICOTERA - LAMEZIA TERME
On Wednesday 19 December 2018 at 5 pm, at Palazzo Nicotera in Lamezia Terme, an evening dedicated to Antonio Marasco will be held, with the presentation of a painting by the great Calabrian futurist artist “Solidarietà per Umberto Boccioni” (1957), and the screening of the documentary “Marasco futurista dissidente” by Tonino Sicoli and Annarosa Macrì (RAI, 1984). Speakers will include: Tonino Sicoli, director of the MAON in Rende; Giovanna De Sensi, former professor at the University of Calabria; Giacinto Gaetano, director of the Lametino Library System; Antonio Pujia, president of the Aleph Arte Association: This is a collateral event to the exhibition “Archipèlagos” underway at the MAON, Museum of 19th and 20th Century Art in Rende, organized by the “A. Capizzano” of Rende – as part of the eighth edition of the Annual Exhibitions of the Capizzano Center – MAON, included in the PAC 2014-2020 of the Calabria Region.
The event, organized in collaboration with the Alpeh Arte Center of Lamezia Terme and the Lametino Library System, also enjoys the patronage of the Municipality of Rende, of the Master's Degree Course in History of Art of the University of Calabria in agreement, among others, with Matera European Capital of Culture 2019.
Antonio MARASCO was born in Nicastro (Cz) in 1896 and died in Florence in 1975. The impetus of the futurists fascinated the young Calabrian who, having moved to Florence, left behind the strong social and cultural backwardness of his region.
In 1912 he enrolled at the Art School of Florence and then continued at the Academy of Fine Arts. He joined Futurism in 1914, Marasco was among the artists known as "futurists in transit". His futurist painting represents a natural evolution of Boccioni's plastic dynamism. From the body of painting, in the 1920s, forms that acquire lightness and transparency, arriving at more airy and schematic formal solutions where the image is synthesized by collecting some of the instances of surrealism and metaphysical painting. In the 1940s he moved towards informalism and material pictorialism. He frequented the artistic circles of the city that gravitated around the magazine "Lacerba" by Papini and Soffici (1913). In 1914 he met Marinetti, with whom he made a memorable trip to Russia, Moscow and Petersburg, during which he met Mayakovsky, Malevic, Tatlin, Burlink, and the exponents of the Russian avant-garde. Back in Italy, with the "futurists in transit" and other neophytes he participated in the First International Futurist Exhibition at the Galleria Sprovieri in Rome (April-May 1914); With Boccioni he participated in 1915 in the Futurist Exhibition at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, California. In the same year he participated with Luigi Russolo in the Futurist exhibition at the "Macbeth Gallery" in New York. Together with Prampolini and Evola he collaborated with the Swiss Dadaist Movement. In 1919 he participated in the National Futurist Exhibition in Milan and in the International Exhibition at the Winter Club in Turin. Between 1919 and 1920 he collaborated with Prampolini at the "November Gruppe" in Berlin; in 1921 he set up his personal exhibition in Berlin at Ruggero Vasari's gallery.
In 1923 in Bern together with Lindegger, Mühlenen and Seiler, he formed the Futurist Group «Der Schrittweitei» (constructivism of elementary forms. But the most important recognition for Marasco was the exhibition at the Galleria Botto in Florence (1931), when Marinetti, in introducing him in the catalogue and during the conference, hailed him as «one of the greatest artists of Futurism».
In 1932 he founded the Blocco Futurista Indipendente. In 1934 he published the Futurist novel Panorami allo zenith; he was also invited to the Rome Quadriennale in 1939 and the Venice Biennale in 1942. A former combatant in the 1915-18 war, he took part in the events of the fascist regime and in the Second World War world. With the fall of fascism he was arrested, then tried for collaborationism with a five-year sentence. In 1949 he moved to Rome, gradually resuming his participation in artistic events. He was present at the Rome Quadrennial in 1948 and 1952, at the Venice Biennial in 1952 and 1960 and above all at the historical exhibitions of futurism held at the Kunsthans in Zurich in 1950, at Palazzo Barberini in Rome in 1959, at the Kunstunseum in Winterthur and at the Stadlischen Gallery of Yale University and at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome in 1959.
In 1967 he joined the declaration-manifesto of «Futurismo Oggi» promoted by E. Benedetto.
His personal exhibitions in Calabria were held in 1969 and 1972 at the Galleria la Bussola in Cosenza, at the Magazzini Voltaire in Lamezia Terme in 1984, at the Centro Aleph in Lamezia Terme in 1994 and at the Museo Civico in Rende in 1995, curated by Tonino Sicoli and Enrico Crispolti.
PALAZZO NICOTERA
Piazzetta T. Campanella
Lamezia Terme (CZ)
Project and organization
Center for art and culture "A. Capizzano"
Via De Bartolo, 1
Palazzo Vitari 87036 Rende (CS)
Tel. 392 7748505
www.maon.it
