After “Pablo Picasso in Via Margutta 1917-2007” this is the second exhibition that Valentina Moncada dedicates to Via Margutta’s artists, in homage to her forefather Marquis Francesco Patrizi who built in 1857 the complex of art studios called “Patrizi’s studios”. «mar’DEI guttAvi» is also a tribute of the artist Luigi Ontani to the street where he had his own studio, remembering the tableaux vivants created in the final Nineteenth Century by the artists who animated the via Margutta’s International Artistic Association, during Rome’s Carnevals, with their grotesque dancing parades.
The performance consists of a parade of fourteen big papier-mâché masks, considered and designed by Ontani as a unique work, inspired by famous artists who have been living and working in via Margutta during the course of time. Then the masks stop inside a courtyard in via Margutta 54, standing over a carpet of flowers in front of the building that was the ancient seat of the International Artistic Association.
The artists selected by Ontani are: Nicolas Poussin, Luigi Valadier, Antonio Mancini, Filippo de Pisis, Gino Severini, Nino Franchina, Pablo Picasso, Peter Van Lear, Mariano Fortuny, Nino Costa, Episcopo Lipinsky, Federico Fellini, Sibilla Aleramo, Giulio Aristide Sartorio and Giulio Turcato. After the performance, the masks are set inside the Valentina Moncada Gallery, where they are exhibited for the rest of the exhibition time. At the same time, in all the via Margutta’s shops and galleries it is shown a selection of vintage photos of renowned artists during the old Roman Carnivals, from the collection of Palazzo Braschi Museum of Rome. At the end of the exhibit, the fourteen masks are displayed also in the Hall of the MACRO-Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome.
In this occasion it is published a catalogue-map of the street, containing also the masks drawings realized by Ontani, the list of all the artists who have lived and worked in via Margutta and a map with all the galleries, workshops and other activities of via Margutta today.
Promoted by the International Association of via Margutta and by Valentina Moncada Gallery, created by Rossella Meucci Reale, curated by Pier Gabriele Vangelli, (director of the performance Valentina Moncada), in association with the MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. Patronage: Department of Cultural Activities Municipality of Rome.
Catalogue: Luigi Ontani-Tableau vivant, curated by Rossella Meucci Reale, coordination by Arianna Antoniutti (texts by: Pier Gabriele Vangelli, Laura Pepe, Rossella Meucci Reale, Valentina Moncada, Pietro Simonelli, Francesca Di Castro, Anna Villari and Luca Massimo Barbero, director of the MACRO), Allemandi Editore & Co, Torino 2009.
