Italiano
MODIGLIANI,
an exhibition to watch sitting!?
We are in 2018 and, maybe, with a vision that is a bit too futuristic and skeptical for vintage souls, but the Modigliani art experience have to be seen while you’re seatting in a chair.
The retrospective at Milan’s Mudec, Museum of Cultures in Milan, is set for 20 June to 4 November 2018.
Given that every form of art, which recreates the visual arts in any form is worthy of note, this exhibition, to be precise, defined itself as a multi-sensory experience that should involve the viewer offering the discovery of the artistic figure of Modigliani, was rather childish and slightly disappointing albeit a lot of effect.
It is right to make an explanation: for the user who has never known Modigliani‘s art, it is an excellent first approach, evocative, evocative and that leads to the discovery of his artistic figure and, rightly, of artistic, historical and socio-cultural influences. that made him the artist that is in our eyes today.
At a more conscious and erudite look, this multisensory experience is quite reductive and paradoxically childish.
The reason why? First of all, the genesis of the exhibition should be specified at the entrance to the visitor, not creating expectations or eluding themselves. It would be enough to warn the end user that what will be attend will be a show (and not an exhibition), and specifically a series of images, more or less well packaged, of his works.
This would weld the tacit contract between the two parties, without generating the final disappointment. Failing this initial agreement we enter the exhibition where unfortunately we will not see the vibration of its brushstrokes, let alone admire the strong and lively expression of his works to the detriment of the forms that constitute them.
From the first small room, or “casket room” where are housed some masterpieces of early twentieth century African art from the permanent collection of Mudec and two portraits of Modigliani from the museum of the twentieth century in Milan, you access the largest, true and the heart of the exhibition, the Esperience Room!
SIT CONFORTABLY!
Wall projections of images of his paintings that retrace his artistic career and his life in general showing the loves, passions and cultural historical context in which the artist from Livorno works, enlivened by a musical selection in the background. A kind of power point presentation in an advanced version that “shows” the story of the bohemian world of Modigliani, his days spent in Montmartre and Montparnasse of the early twentieth century and which, including projections also on the floor carpet, tries to provide to the final user the exact coordinates for a greater sense of immersion in the art.
REALLY?
If we want to be even more fussy, the speed of scrolling images and writing is so fast that you can not appreciate the quality or even read everything to the end, unless you want to stay all afternoon to appreciate them during the bis and capture the details that were lost at a first reading.
But we are not so picky and, continuing to appreciate the efforts of the people who worked behind it, we can only hope that the next time we give more space to the right balance between video, speed reading and physical works compared to these video-music games, although emotionally involving.
The experience ends in the Infinity Room, which is a hall of mirrors, where some of Modigliani’s most significant works are presented in a continuous refraction game.
To summarize my opinion, completely questionable and subjective, this kind of multisensory experience is absolutely perfect for those who have no knowledge of the subject, Modigliani, and therefore as a first approach to be introduced to his art that then can be deepened, less or not perfect for all the others
Nothing to compare with the marvelous retrospective which, again at Mudec, was organized in honor of Frida Kahlo.
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