MUSCAT: The National Museum on Thursday inaugurated at Bayt Greiza the exhibition 'The Infinity of White: Lucio Fontana and the Italian Artists of the Absolute'. This comes in furtherance of cultural communication between the Sultanate of Oman and the Italian Republic.
The exhibition displays eight works of art by Italian artists, in cooperation with the Italian “Robilant and Voena” foundation, a long-established art house devoted to the promotion of Italian post-war art.
The exhibition brings together works by the most influential artists who energised Italian painting and sculpture in the mid-twentieth century: Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Castellani, Pietro Consagra, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Paolo Scheggi. The exhibition aims to bring the work of these artists to new audiences, bringing a greater understanding of how they uprooted artistic traditions to explore the limitless potential of space.
In addition to the exhibition at Bayt Greiza, Robilant and Voena is lending an artwork by Agostino Bonalumi, Rosso (Red), to the National Museum, where it will be displayed alongside the Museum’s permanent collection.
Jamal bin Hassan al Moosawi, Secretary-General of the National Museum, said: “To complement the legacy of this historic house with its exquisite geometric design, the idea of the project came up titled ‘A Masterpiece in Bayt Greiza,’ through which the National Museum enriches the artistic and expressive dimensions of this palace by hosting art exhibitions with splendid implications and senses within its walls, such as the “The Infinity of White” exhibition. We hope that visitors to the exhibition will have an unforgettable artistic experience."
Speaking about the exhibition, Edmondo di Robilant and Marco Voena, Partners at Robilant and Voena have stated: "As one of the leading international galleries of post-war Italian art, Robilant and Voena is delighted to be curating this exhibition in partnership with the National Museum, the first exhibition focusing on Spatialism and its legacy in the 1960s and 1970s to take place in the Middle East. We hope this exhibition will allow new audiences to engage with the pioneering artistic experiments set in motion by Lucio Fontana and his contemporaries."
The artworks in this exhibition exemplify the variety and innovation of the artists of this era. United by the colour white, embodying the purity of the artistic ambitions of these artists and emphasising the power of their spatial experiments in monochrome, the journey through the artworks reflects the development of the movement from the 1950s to the 1970s. - ONA
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