On July 3, 2019, the Lia Rumma Gallery in Milan will open Clegg & Guttmann's solo show "Italian Modernism”.
On the three floors of the gallery, the context in which Modernism developed in Italy will be reconstructed. A period of great scientific discoveries and philosophical speculations, of social and political changes, of strong industrial development, of creativity in art and literature, but also of ideological uncertainties and the birth of populism. Many aspects overlap with the reality of today. "One hundred years after the beginning of Modernism - the artists explain - we find ourselves in a profound state of uncertainty as to what answers to the most basic questions of ethics, aesthetics and politics should be given”. Seven environments will invite the public to interactive "cognitive exercises" that trigger a combination of sensory, intellectual and emotional stimuli. Each environment, furnished with furniture and objects, re-proposes the narration of a different milieu of reference - artistic, literary, political, philosophical, etc.. - thanks to large wall projections of black and white documentary photos of some of the characters of Italian Modernism. The visual path is also accompanied by the simultaneous audio reproduction of the reading of parts of their texts or writings about them, but also of musical motifs and hymns of that cultural and political climate. A series of photographic portraits of Italian collectors will also be on display, together with some still lifes inspired by the modernism of Cézanne's apples and Van Gogh's sunflowers. The exhibition is completed by a video projection from 2006 of the Viennese Secession movement, the result of the modernist experience in Austria.
We would like to thank Gallerist Michel Leo for having given significant support to the exhibition.
