The Grand Tour | December 2023

Von Buren Contemporary presents

The Grand Tour

Christmas group exhibition with works by

Mattia Barbalaco     Bato     Justin Bradshaw     Lorenzo Bruschini     

Lucianella Cafagna     Pietro Capone     Chiara Caselli     Clamisart     Alessio Deli     

Mihail Dinisiuc     Luis J. Fernández     Augusto Gadea     Simona Gasperini    

Vittorio Iavazzo     Michelino Iorizzo     Gabriele Luciani     Maiti    

Juan José Martínez Cánovas     Charlie Masson     Mario Mei     Paolo Migliazza    

Kristina Milakovic     Guido Morelli     Claire Piredda     Sofia Podestà    

Massimo Pulini     Saro Puma     Giulio Rigoni     Agostino Rocco     Vera Rossi     

Tina Sgrò     Beppe Stasi     Marco Stefanucci     Hannah Ungaro-Pope

Vernissage

Sunday December 10 2023

5 p.m. – 10.00 p.m.

Presentation text: Raffaele Milani

Organised and curated by: Michele von Büren

Von Buren Contemporary, Via Giulia 13, Rome

the exhibition will remain on show until January 31, 2024

A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see.

Samuel Johnson

Von Buren Contemporary is thrilled to present THE GRAND TOUR, a rich and varied Christmas exhibition inspired by a past era of travel and adventure.

Beginning in the 17^th century, it was fashionable for wealthy families to send their sons on a tour of Europe to complete their education by introducing them to the art, history and culture of the continent and in particular Italy. This rite of passage was known as The Grand Tour. It generally included visits to Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples and would last months, even years. Many of the Grand Tourists – who later came to include women – would acquire paintings, sculptures, prints and other souvenirs during their travels, which would be taken home as keepsakes of a formative journey.

With the participation of 34 artists; a diversity of genres including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, collage and ceramic art; and the recreation of a traditional Italian Quadreria (picture gallery), The Grand Tour will transform the gallery itself into an installation artwork so that visitors can immerse themselves in a festive, back-in-time experience.

Some of the artists, including Mattia Barbalaco, Pietro Capone, Mihail Dinisiuc, Gabriele Luciani and Massimo Pulini, use their formidable skills to deliberately evoke the formal world of an art museum or academy, while others – Juan José Martínez Cánovas, Charlie Masson, Agostino Rocco and Beppe Stasi – put their startling technique to a more playful end by revisiting works by the great masters with a contemporary eye.

Many of the works on show focus on the landscape. As a souvenir from their travels, Grand Tourists liked to purchase pictures of their favourite places, generating high demand for painters of Italian landscapes and vedute (topographical views). Justin Bradshaw, Luis J. Fernández, Augusto Gadea, Michelino Iorizzo, Kristina Milakovic, Guido Morelli and Marco Stefanucci explore various aspects of this tradition, while photographers Sofia Podestà and Vera Rossi capture sites that were a must-see for tourists, including the Palermo Botanical Garden that so enchanted Goethe (Podestà) and the impossibly romantic Garden of Ninfa with its flower-covered ruins (Rossi). Hannah Ungaro-Pope, meanwhile, bases her research on Goethe’s idea of the Urpflanze – a plant archetype from which all other plants stem and which he hoped to find on his travels through Italy.

Collage artist Simona Gasperini and painters Saro Puma and Giulio Rigoni take a more whimsical approach to the theme with works in a highly illustrative vein, while artistic duo Clamisart examine the souvenir frenzy associated with the Tour with the creation of porcelain plates and ornaments.

Mario Mei and Tina Sgrò participate with evocative paintings of the interiors of Rome museums and churches, while sculptors Maiti, Paolo Migliazza and Claire Piredda focus on the human figure with creations in paper mache, resin and terracotta.

The world of mythology, a dominant theme in the artwork that would have been admired by a Grand Tourist, is the inspiration for the works of Neapolitan sculptor Vittorio Iavazzo and Rome painter Lorenzo Bruschini, while Lucianella Cafagna presents us with a large-scale portrait on paper of a young girl reminiscent of a Henry James or E.M. Forster Grand Tour heroine.

Looking outside Italy, Roman artist Bato turns to the ruins of Babylonia for inspiration while Chiara Caselli enchants with a series of postcard-size views of Bukhara, the ancient city of Uzbekistan.

CHARITY ART RAFFLE

Visitors to the exhibition opening on December 10 will have the chance of winning an artwork from the show. A total of three works will be donated as prizes in a charity raffle with money raised from the sale of the tickets going to 4Ukraine Humanitarian Aid, a UK-based non-profit organization which collects and delivers aid for the children and people of Ukraine.