Forty years after the last major exhibition dedicated to him, Mart is presenting a comprehensive retrospective on the Trentino artist Luigi Bonazza. Having trained at the time of the Viennese Secession, Bonazza was one of the protagonists of the cultural ferment of the early 20th century in Trentino, which served to bridge different but profoundly interconnected cultural worlds.

Curated by Alessandra Tiddia, with an exhibition design by Ruffo Wolf, the retrospective Luigi Bonazza. Tra Secessione e Déco [Luigi Bonazza. Between Secession and Art Deco] presents 300 works to the public, including paintings, drawings, engravings, objects and archival documents.

 

To illustrate Bonazza’s artistic and human journey, there are ten chronological and thematic sections: (Un trentino a Vienna ai tempi della Secessione [A Trentino native in Vienna at the time of the Secession]; Da Trento a Vienna e ritorno [From Trento to Vienna and back]; Il nudo tra incisione e decorazione [The nude in engraving and decoration]; I Disegni [Drawings]; Orfei moderni [Modern Orpheuses]: Bonazza e D’Annunzio [Bonazza and D’Annunzio]; Il mito dell’eroe [The myth of the hero]: aviatori e martiri trentini [Trentino aviators and martyrs]; L’arte pubblica tra sacro e profano [Sacred and profane public art]; I ritratti [Portraits]; I paesaggi [Landscapes]; Artisti ‘trentini/viennesi’ [‘Trentino/Viennese’ artists). At the same time, these also highlight some of Trentino’s most precious heritage, partly preserved by the Province of Trento, through the Mart and the Superintendency for Cultural Heritage, and partly scattered among public and private buildings, churches and collections.

 

There are also numerous works from Vienna, in particular from the Belvedere, the Klimt Foundation and the MAK – Museum für angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Arts).

 

In addition to his masterpiece, The Legend of Orpheus, the exhibition brings together 206 works by Bonazza, not only making one of Trentino’s most talented artists better known to the general public, but also helping the research of scholars, enthusiasts and connoisseurs of his work.

 

Bonazza’s entire oeuvre, like that of his teachers, contemporaries and heirs, interacts with the heritage of the Mart in Rovereto, enhancing it and providing further insights.

It begins with Bonazza’s early works in Vienna and continues with different techniques and formats, references to epic tales and heroic sagas, his relationship with Gabriele d’Annunzio, portraits of Cesare Battisti and other irredentists, and landscapes painted in his later years, depicting the mountains and lakes of his native Trentino.

 

Finally, there are twelve works from Villa Bonazza: the paintings Notturno [Nocturne], La nascita del giorno [The Birth of the Day], Acqua zampillante [Bubbling Water], Sirene [Sirens], Deposizione [Deposition], Aurora [Dawn], some studies, a few landscapes, and the etchings depicting Dante Alighieri and Gabriele d’Annunzio. For this exhibition and thanks to the generosity of the owners, the Bruno Kessler Foundation and Mart have created a 3D street view to allow visitors to explore the Villa virtually via a touch screen.

 

The exhibition also includes an ambitious catalogue, published by Moebius, with reproductions of the works, further information, and critical texts and essays by Alessandra Tiddia, Markus Fellinger, Francesco Parisi, Valerio Terraroli, Maximiliane Buchner, Neva Capra and Luca Gabrielli, Federica Lavagna, Luca Nicolodi, Caterina Tomasi, Mirko Saltori, Alessandro Pasetti Medin, Federico Zanoner, Fabio Campolongo, and Roberta Bonazza. Biography by Noemi Angeli.

 

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