EXTRAORDINARY VISIONS. ITALY

Kolkata Centre for Creativity, Calcutta – India
from 23 October to 17 November 2019
curated by Margherita Guccione and Simona Antonacci

With more than 100 original photographs and a video installation, Extraordinary Visions. Italy is a poetic and yet documentary, social and institutional “atlas” of Italy in recent decades.

From the metaphysical visions of Luigi Ghirri to the landscapes drenched in colour of Franco Fontana and the harrowing account of abandoned land by Letizia Battaglia, from the elegant and essential architectural visions of Gabriele Basilico to the mountains of Walter Niedermayr: all this and more is EXTRAORDINARY VISIONS. ITALY, a portrait of the nation through the eyes of numerous masters of Italian photography, an exhibition curated by Margherita Guccione and Simona Antonacci, promoted by the Ministry for Economic Development and with the fundamental support of Simest Società Italiana per le Imprese all’Esteropresented at MAXXI in 2016 and represents a new stage in the diplomacy of art and culture promoted by the museum. Extraordinary Visions. L’italia ci guarda, presented at MAXXI in 2016 and represents a new stage in the diplomacy of art and culture promoted by the museum.

The works on show, all drawn from the MAXXI Permanent Collection, recount the cultural transformations in which Italy has been a protagonist in recent decades. EXTRAORDINARY VISIONS. ITALY is not an illustrated history of Italy, nor is it a chronological and descriptive account, but rather a reflection on the appearance and the substance of contemporary Italy that tries to capture the most up-to-date dimension, far from a stereotypical idea of the Belpaese. The exhibition offers a journey via three thematic paths: CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPES, STATE, CITY, WORK and ART AND CULTURE, each conceived as an independent visual discourse, a “framing” of converging or diverging points of view to compose an “atlas” that is both poetic and documentary, social and institutional, of the Italy of the last 30 years.

Artists on display: Iwan Baan, Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Letizia Battaglia, Jordi Bernadò, Andrea Botto, Silvia Camporesi, Giovanni Chiaramonte, Mario Cresci, Franco Fontana, Gianni Berengo Gardin, Luigi Ghirri, Guido Guidi, Giuseppe Leone, Ugo Mulas, Walter Niedermayr, Massimo Piersanti, Fabio Ponzio.

organised and promoted by MAXXI – National museum of 21st century arts
in partnership with Kolkata Center for Creativity
with the support of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, SIMEST, Embassy of Italy in India and the Consulate General of Italy in Kolkata