The international tour Cantica21 kicks off in Shanghai. Dante Alighieri and the Italian Artists, the exhibition that presents the 5 new and original works dedicated to the Dante – in the year of the 700th anniversary of his death – produced thanks to the public call Cantica21.Italian Contemporary Art Everywhere by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Ministry of Culture.
The 5 winners in the ‘Dante’ section are the works ‘La dottrina nascosta’ by Silvia Camporesi, ‘Monte Purgatorio’ by Leone Contini, ‘Ciacco’ by Valentina Furian, ‘Bestiario dell’altro mondo’ by Marta Roberti and ‘A salir le stelle – To climb to the star’ by Marinella Senatore: they were selected for their ability to re-propose Dante’s work through the language of contemporary art.
The Shanghai stage of Cantica21. Dante Alighieri and the Italian Artists is a partnership between the Italian Cultural Institute of Shanghai and the Pearl Art Museum, with the scientific curatorship of the Ministry of Culture’s General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity.
The exhibition winds through the darkness to reach the light and traces symbolically the journey made by Dante in the Divine Comedy: from the video work by Valentina Furian immersed in total darkness, to the half-light that envelops the installations by Marinella Senatore and Marta Roberti, through the photographic installation by Silvia Camporesi, we arrive at the large sculpture by Leone Contini bathed in light.
The exhibition also includes a Treccani ‘studium’ with reproductions of codes of Dante’s works and video projections, in perfect dialogue with ‘Shanhai jing’, the section curated by the Pearl Art Museum devoted to the works by Chinese artists Chai Yiming, Peng Wei, Qiu Anxiong, Shao Yinong, Sun Xun, Wu Jian’an and Wu Junyong who offer different interpretations of the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’, one of the best-known cosmography and mythological works of Chinese literature.
More information at cantica21.it and iicshanghai.esteri.it
The exhibition at the Pearl Art Museum is part of the project ‘Encounter of Imagination: Dialogue between The Divine Comedy and Classic of Mountains and Seas’.
Cantica21.Italian Contemporary Art Everywhere is a joint initiative by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Ministry of Culture, a public call launched in September 2020 to promote the creative research of Italian artists, the production of works and their promotion in the world. It has selected 45 artists for the production of new works: the 5 winners for the section dedicated to Dante, 20 under 35s and 20 over 35s. Thanks to the Italian Cultural Institutes, the works of the selected artists will be exhibited between 2021 and 2022 all over the world, so as to create a great touring exhibition of contemporary Italian art on an international scale.
