Collezione Maramotti showcases Van Ofen, Pediconi

Collezione Maramotti showcases Van Ofen, Pediconi (By Alina Trabattoni).

(ANSA) – Reggio Emilia, October 9 – The Collezione Maramotti, a private collection of contemporary artwork opened by late Max Mara founder Achille Maramotti at the Italian fashion house’s Reggio Emilia HQ, this month premieres the latest exhibition of German artist Michael van Ofen as well as photographs by Italy’s Beatrice Pediconi. In Van Ofen’s “GERMANIA UND ITALIA”, The Continuance of the Contemporary show, which opened on October 6 and is slated to run through January 31 2014, the work consists of his new painting cycle that elaborates a new iconography focussing on the nation-building process in Germany and Italy in the second half of the 19th century. “Michael Van Ofen formally explores the relation between painting and history”, said Marina Dacci, Director of the Collezione Maramotti, in an interview. “In this case the focus of the exhibition project is the establishment of national identity both in Italy and Germany through 19th-century painting, the starting point from which the artist tries to re- construct a new iconography from a conceptual viewpoint.” In fact, in order to stress this “historical development, the artist has collected and interpreted in his own fashion objects of artistic testimony of that epoch-making moment, through which he has highlighted the unbroken agreement between political power and public euphoria from the past to the present of contemporaneity,” according to a statement released by the art collection organizers.

Also on show in parallel to van Ofen’s works is Beatrice Pediconi’s new exhibition, where the artist works with photography through the means of both Polaroid and large-size shots, all the whilst creating an environment in which the viewer is “wrapped in a firmament of moving pigments, a visual space that like a spaceship leads them into other possible territories”, the Collezione Maramotti said. “Beatrice Pediconi explores and experiments with a performing and artistic process which develops around and through a non-conventional medium: water. Pigments and organic and inorganic elements are assembled and disassembled into formal geographies which are only partially controlled by the artist”, said director Dacci.

“The work then consists in the possibility of freezing large-size images of this process on a Polaroid shot and/or video-recording their dynamic dimension”. Pediconi’s works are also being exhibited from October 6 through January 31 2014.

The Maramotti collection is the legacy of Achille Maramotti, the mind behind the Max Mara brand and also an important protagonist of Italian finance.

He founded the collection in an attempt to open up the world of art to a wider audience, making masterpieces more accessible to art lovers. He collected art independently of his fashion and business operations as part of a private passion for paintings and sculptures.

“The project is set within an articulated cultural scenario where public and private institutions pursue their specific mission through their own management models: having a multiple and diverse vision and players supporting and enhancing culture is always a good thing, especially in a difficult time such as now”, Dacci said. “The Collezione Maramotti wants to share with the public an idea of research and support to artistic production where artists are the protagonists alongside the new visions they are able to offer us”. Access to the shows, like all the others, is free and open to visitors by appointment, in accordance with Maramotti’s desires. The exhibitions are being hosted in the historical Max Mara building on the outskirts of Reggio Emilia.

The building in question was constructed in the 1950s and in use until about 2003, when the fashion house production was relocated to a nearby area to permit Max Mara further expansion.

The permanent Maramotti collection is also hosted in the building, on the first and second floor and the temporary projects and exhibition, which include new exhibitions like Evgeny Antufiev’s show, on the ground floor together with the library and the archive. There are currently over 200 of art permanently on show, representing the painstaking selection process carried out by Maramotti during the course of some forty years of passionate collecting.

The permanent collection contains mostly paintings, including masterpieces by Francis Bacon, Alberto Burri, Jannis Kounellis and Lucio Fontana, but also sculptures and installations.

It focuses on the post-1945 period, and boasts examples of some of the most important Italian and international artistic trends.

Some 120 artists are represented in the selection.

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