Alba, The Piera, Pietro and Giovanni Ferrero Foundation 29 October

Alba, The Piera, Pietro and Giovanni Ferrero Foundation
29 October 2016 - 27 February 2017
Exhibit curated by Ester Coen
Press Release
The Ferrero Foundation in Alba is preparing its tribute to Giacomo Balla (Turin 1871 – Rome 1958), the
extraordinary artist who played the fundamental role of liaison between Italian art and the avant-gardes of
history. Curated by Ester Coen, the exhibit guarantees wide international appeal.
Based on a 20-year history of putting on its own art exhibits as an effort to develop local culture, the Ferrero
Foundation is operating in scientific collaboration with the GAM in Turin and the Superintendent of Fine Arts in
Piedmont to organise the exhibit and the relative educational activities.
The project dedicated to Giacomo Balla is divided into thematic sections: social realism and the Divisionism
technique; iridescent compenetration and studies on the perception of light; the analysis of movement and
Futurism.
In the artwork that followed his first apprenticeship in Turin, his eye penetrates the painful and cruel reality of
classes on the outskirts of society. A great number of works will document this phase – between the late 19th
and early 20th century – during which Balla would develop, in parallel with themes of suffering and
alienation, an original style of great technical sensibility, rooted in the Divisionist currents of the Piedmont
area. It was that brushstroke – rich in luminous filaments, the strong contrast of lights and darks, and the choice
of audacious and extreme lines of perspective – which would represent for the generation of subsequent
adherents to the Futurist Manifesto a unique and extraordinary model to emulate.
The second and fundamental part of the exhibition will highlight Balla’s interest towards dynamism and his
adoption of the poetics of Futurism in the chromatic synthesis of individual principles of visible light and in
confrontation with themes of the modern. Starting from the realism of the first paintings the exhibition will then
disclose the transposition of earlier compositional principles into the vibrant abstraction of the Compenetrazioni
iridescenti [Iridescent Interpenetrations] and the recomposition of the new reality into movement with the Linee
di velocità [Lines of Speed].
In a progressive approach towards pure signs – vertical, diagonal, spiral – Balla’s language discovers new
categories of representation in primary parameters, in the amplification of the physical phenomenon –
sectioned and bound to its reality of vibratile matter.
His vision drew on the greatest depths but also broke through the limitations of the frame in a play of ‘relaunching’ towards life.
The artwork on display belongs to prestigious public and private collections, both in Italy and abroad. This
exhibit gives visitors the opportunity to view extraordinary masterpieces that are rarely loaned out: the entire
polyptych Cycle of the Living from the National Gallery of Modern Art of Rome and the Academy of San Luca
of Rome; The Hand of the Violinist from the Estorick Collection of London; Girl Running on a Balcony from the
Novecento Museum of Milan; Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery of Buffalo;
Flight of the Swallows from the Museum of Modern Art of New York; Abstract Speed + Sound on loan from the
Peggy Guggenheim Collection of Venice, which will be on display next to Abstract Speed. The Car Has Passed
from the Tate Modern of London; and the Speeding Automobile from the Israel Museum of Jerusalem. These
masterpieces are just some of the artwork featured in the exhibit.
Hours
Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays: 3 pm - 7 pm; Saturdays, Sundays and holidays: 10 am - 7 pm.
Closed: Tuesdays, 24, 25, 31December 2016 and 1 January 2017
FONDAZIONE PIERA PIETRO E GIOVANNI FERRERO – O.N.L.U.S. – ENTE MORALE D. M. 6-12-91
Via Vivaro 49 – 12051 Alba (CN) – Cod. Fisc. 90016920044 – Tel. 0173 295259 – 0173 295085 – Fax 0173 363274
www.fondazioneferrero.it
info@fondazioneferrero.it
Information
The Ferrero Foundation Press Office: +39 346 3325466
ufficiostampa@fondazioneferrero.it www.fondazioneferrero.it
/
+39
0173
295094
In collaboration with:
Studio ESSECI, Sergio Campagnolo tel. +39 049 663499; gestione1@studioesseci.net
www.studioesseci.net
FONDAZIONE PIERA PIETRO E GIOVANNI FERRERO – O.N.L.U.S. – ENTE MORALE D. M. 6-12-91
Via Vivaro 49 – 12051 Alba (CN) – Cod. Fisc. 90016920044 – Tel. 0173 295259 – 0173 295085 – Fax 0173 363274
www.fondazioneferrero.it
info@fondazioneferrero.it

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