“The Great Tradition” and Italian Painting in the 1990's.

Works produced throughout the 1990s by 32 Italian painters are being exhibited at the Millî Reasürans Art Gallery in Istanbul between February 5 and March 5.

According to Adelia Rispoli, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute, the exhibition is like a century-long story of Italian painting.

The central question of Italian painting in the 21st century: “Will it be able to remain Italian while continuing to draw nourishment from its great tradition?”

Organized by the Italian Cultural Institute and the Millî Reasürans Art Gallery between February 5 and March 5, the exhibition “The Great Tradition and Italian Painting in the 1990s” offers an excellent opportunity to view the works of thirty-two Italian painters collectively.

Adelia Rispoli, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute, and gallery director Amelie Edgü note that since the oldest of the selected artists was born in 1929 and the youngest in 1965, and because they represent different tendencies and regions of Italian painting, the exhibition is not limited to the 1990s but can also be viewed as an assessment of the 20th century—or of its latter half—for Italian painting.

Most of the works on display belong to artists born in the 1950s who began producing work in the 1970s. However, artists from earlier generations, though fewer in number, successfully fulfill in this exhibition the task of summarizing the periods that prepared the ground for the 1990s through the artistic approaches they carried into that decade. Artists born in the 1960s, on the other hand, present the art that emerged after the 1980s.

In organizing the exhibition, attention was also paid to the fact that although Italian painting has displayed general nationwide characteristics in almost every period, it also possesses very significant regional features. The artists included in the exhibition were selected from different regions of Italy. Thus, the exhibition makes it possible to present Italy’s artistic spectrum at a single glance. From the Piemonte region to Sicily, from the Marche region to Rome, from Tuscany to Naples, from Bologna to Bari, and from Genoa to Rome and Milan, most Italian regions are represented in the exhibition. This selection makes it possible to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of Italian painting in the 1990s. The exhibition catalogue includes a short biographical note and a critical text for each artist.

In his essay included in the exhibition catalogue, A. Romano Brizzi, director of the Roman cultural association “Il Politico,” examines the adventure of Italian painting in the 20th century through the concepts of “The Great Tradition” and “Remaining Italian.” The essay explores the painting traditions that emerged in Italy in the 16th century and traces their echoes in the 1990s. The exhibition is evaluated as “an effort to take stock of its time,” and, with regard to the 21st century, seeks an answer to the critical historical question facing Italian painting: “Will Italian painting be able to remain on the same path— ‘remaining Italian’ within its own tradition—under conditions of rapid cultural integration?”