z2o Sara Zanin is pleased to announce the participation of Mariella Bettineschi in Di quadro in quadro, l'arte della citazione, curated by Daniela Ferrari.
In art, the term “quotation” refers to the reuse of motifs, themes, and elements drawn from earlier works: an echo that is rarely literal, yet remains recognisable. One might even argue that much of the history of art is a matter of quotation, as it develops from the earliest representations through an ongoing succession of references and close dialogues. From Painting to Painting. The Art of Quotation explores this dense and fascinating network of rewritings. Conceived as a gradual progression, initially more sparse and conceptual, and then increasingly colourful, dense, and pop, the exhibition is divided into eight sections: Vis à vis, The Copy, Paintings within Paintings, Handwriting, D’après, The Morandi Case, Cover (the largest section, leading into the contemporary world), and Avida Dollars. Bringing together 150 works from the Mart Collections and important public and private collections, and featuring almost 80 artists, the exhibition develops around the idea that the history of art can be read as a compelling and continuous sequence of covers: forms and themes from the past travel through time and are constantly renewed. From the close dialogue between the masters of the early twentieth century and the art of antiquity - evident, for example, in Giorgio de Chirico’s copy after Raphael and Virgilio Guidi’s copy after Correggio - to the device of the “painting within the painting,” the exhibition documents how the artist’s studio has always been a place of reflection on and homage to great models and sources of inspiration. Painters such as Felice Casorati, Filippo de Pisis, and Renato Guttuso incorporated explicit references to masterpieces of the past or to their own works, transforming the pictorial surface into a complex layering of visual memories. With the advent first of photography and then of popular culture, the concept of mechanical reproduction analysed by Walter Benjamin was amplified, challenging the traditional idea of the uniqueness of the artwork. The exhibition highlights this crucial transition through works by contemporary artists such as Giulio Paolini, Luigi Ontani, and Francesco Vezzoli, whose practices are grounded in appropriation and in the ironic play of identifying with masters of the past. The exhibition ultimately reaches the contemporary world and the languages of mass media, where timeless images such as the Mona Lisa or iconic Venuses give way to - or merge with - the myths of cinema, or are absorbed into the mechanisms of mass consumption and production, following a trajectory that stretches from Andy Warhol’s Pop revolution to Piero Manzoni’s conceptual provocations. Through digital reworkings, visual puns, and reflections on the commodification of beauty, the exhibition invites visitors to question not only what they are looking at, but how they look at it - and, above all, the power of the gaze itself. The cultural project engages the public in a game of mirrors that calls for attention, involvement, and complicity, encouraging visitors to seek out connections and associations, some striking and explicit, others subtle and whispered. It creates an environment that stimulates our visual memory and invites us to recognise echoes of the past, not only in the works of artists who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, affirmed the importance of looking to the Masters - Giorgio de Chirico, Achille Funi, Felice Casorati - but also in those of leading figures of the second half of the twentieth century - Mario Schifano, Giulio Paolini, Andy Warhol - and in the art of our own time, represented by Francesco Vezzoli, Vik Muniz, and Ai Weiwei.
Mariella Bettineschi | Di quadro in quadro, l'arte della citazione
Mart, Corso Bettini, 43, 38068 Rovereto TN
