Press release

DRAWING AND SCULPTING TIME: 1950 – 2000

Fondazione Stelline celebrates the arrival of spring in Milan with three Milan-born/adopted artists: Giuseppe Coco, Walter Molino and

Milan, March 2014 –Fondazione Stelline celebrates the arrival of spring in Milan with a double exhibition dedicated to artists – either born in or adopted by the city - who have helped to make Milan great.

Beginning on 10th April, opening at 6.30 pm on 9th April , the exhibition hall of the Foundation will be presenting an detailed series of exhibitions dedicated to Milan and the many aspects of the city manifested in the works of the guest artists.

The first event, Matita&Metropoli , dedicated to Giuseppe Coco and Walter Molino , offers an imaginary dialogue between two great illustrators and an exhibition that combines places and faces. Sponsored by Fondazione Stelline in collaboration with Fondazione Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori and curated by Chiara Gatti, the exhibition features some hundred works, including original drawings, tempera and pastels, as well as a careful selection of archive documents. The works consist in a series by Giuseppe Coco dedicated to the Milan Underground, donated by his heirs to Fondazione Stelline and exhibited today in occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Milan Underground ‘Red Line’, and a series of works and documents from the Walter Molino Archive, which was recently acquired by Fondazione Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori. An unpublished dialogue between these two leading figures of cultural life in Milan and in general, from the world of publishing and printing, covers a period of time lasting almost fifty years, from the second post-war period onwards. These works bring to life the atmosphere of Milan as it was in bygone days, both modern and romantic. It is a place that combines memory with the enthusiasm of the economic boom, as illustrated in Molino’s society news scenes. It is a city of the soul, made of dreams, nightmares, madness and loneliness, from the viewpoint of Coco’s visionary universe.

The second exhibition, Nascenza , is wholly dedicated to Emilio Scanavino. In collaboration with the Scanavino Archives and curated by Elisabetta Longari, the exhibition presents a reinterpretation of the artist’s works , which goes beyond the recognition by the leading representatives of the Italian Art Informel season. The exhibition, whose name recurs in many of Scanavino’s paintings, features a central series of unpublished drawings and a number of that together create a rich network of associations made up of similarities and subtle yet substantial changes. The choice of works tends to emphasise the experimental content of the artist’s language, and certain archetypal forms that appear repeatedly – the egg, the nest, bread, the hands and incessantly evolving knots – bear witness to the nature of Scanavino’s creative process and the true subject-matter of his works, which seems to be the constant balance between the opposing forces of life and death.

In addition, the Foundation also has the privilege of housing a mosaic floor created by Bobo Piccoli in the ’70s. During the months of the exhibition, in occasion of the major conservation-restoration works carried out on the mosaic, there will be a focus study analysing the artist’s technique and vision in creating this environmental work . The decorative motives of the floor are directly reminiscent of the graphic art of the ’70s, with clear references to surrealist figuration and classic Greece.

“In occasion of spring in Milan, Fondazione Stelline will be hosting the works of artists who found in the city fruitful sources of inspiration for their art”, says PierCarla Delpiano, President of Fondazione

Stelline. “This series of exhibitions, besides their great artistic and scenographic impact, are consistent with the cultural direction that the Foundation is pursuing”.

Giuseppe Coco , Biancavilla (Catania) 1936 – 2012. Coco began to command the attention of the leading Italian and foreign newspapers in 1960 when, an already precocious illustrator for the magazine ‘il Travaso delle idee’, he moved to Milan to create a series of rainbows under the ‘Paul Film’ contract. His fame was further increased thanks to a personal exhibition of paintings held at the Milan Art Center in 1974 and his many contributions as illustrator for the advertising and publishing world. Over the years he has worked prolifically for a wide variety of magazines, including, in Italy, Amica, Comix, Corriere della Sera, Corriere Medico, Famiglia Cristiana, Grazia, Epoca, Horror, La Gazzetta dello Sport, L’Europeo, L’Espresso, la Repubblica, La Domenica del Corriere, La Settimana enigmistica, Panorama, Relax and Zoom, and abroad, Bazar, El Pais, Er, Lui, Pardon, Match, Playmen, Punch, Hara Kiri, Neberspalter, Stern and The Saturday Evening Post, becoming one of the Italian pioneers of ‘black humour’. From 1987 he was author of a feature in Playboy. His creations include the characters Arthur, Esculapia, Piccolo Slim and the unmistakable “Re” with his ‘classic’ pointy nose, as well as a series of works inspired by the Milan Underground.

Walter Molino , Reggio Emilia 1915 – Milan 1997. After moving to Milan, where he went through university, Molino illustrated stories for Il Monello (Editrice Universo) and L’Intrepido, and published satirical cartoons in the magazines Libro e Moschetto, Il Popolo d’Italia, Bertoldo and Marc'Aurelio. He made his debut in the world of comic books with 'Virus, il mago della Foresta Morta’ (1938) and ‘Capitan l'Audace’, from texts by Federico Pedrocchi, and various stories by Salgari. In 1939 he graphically inherited Rino Albertarelli’s Kit Carson, and in 1941 took the place of Achille Beltrame in illustrating the covers of ‘Domenica del Corriere’. He drew Pin Focoso for ‘Corriere dei piccoli’. In 1942 he illustrated the covers and interiors of ‘Il romanzo mensile’, and in 1945 contributed to Giovannino Guareschi’s Candido. From 1946 he drew romantic comic book stories for Grand Hotel, which he signed with the pseudonym JW Symes, after designing the famous logo of the magazine. He invented the feature ‘Così li vede WM’, a gallery of caricatures based on personages from show business, for which he was awarded the Palma d'Oro prize at the Festival of Humour of Bordighera. In 1995 the Milanese gallery Agrifoglio dedicated to the artist an exhibition entitled ‘Walter Molino tra cronaca e arte’.

Emilio Scanavino , 1922 – Milan 1986. In 1942 Scanavino enrolled at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Milan. In 1947 he went to Paris, where he stayed for some time, meeting art critics, as well as poets and artists such as Edouard Jaguer, and . The Paris experience proved to be vital in the development of his style, especially with regard to the post- Cubist echoes that the artist assimilated and interpreted in a personal key since as far back as 1948, when he exhibited at the Galleria l’Isola in Genoa. In 1950 at the 25 th he captured the attention of critics with Soliloquio musicale . In 1954, 1958 and 1960 he was again invited to the Venice Biennale, this time to hold a personal exhibition. In 1951 he went to to hold another personal exhibition at the Galérie Apollinaire. Here he stayed for some time, and was deeply impressed by the work of Bacon, Sutherland and Matta. From 1968 he worked increasingly at Calice Ligure, where he set up an artistic community, dedicated especially to handicraft activities (ceramics). A number of personal exhibitions have been dedicated to his work at the Kunsthalle of Darmstadt (1973), Palazzo Grassi in Venice (1973) and the Palazzo Reale in Milan (1974).

Matita&Metropoli: Giuseppe Coco and Walter Molino Emilio Scanavino: Nascenza

Fondazione Stelline, corso Magenta 61 – Milan – 10th April – 8th June 2014 Tuesday-Sunday, 10 am to 8 pm. Tickets (one for both exhibitions) adults € 6; reduced € 4.50; schools € 2 www.stelline.it

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