Posts in Exhibitions
For the Love of Typewriters – Olivetti Exhibit Preview
For the Love of Typewriters – Olivetti Exhibit Preview

I’ve got something good for you today. To celebrate 110 years of a true Italian icon, Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art is hosting an exhibit in honor of Olivetti—Italy’s premier typewriter manufacturer. Tracing a history of design, graphics, technological innovation, and communication, Looking Forward. Olivetti: 110 Years of Imagination, opens today, 20 February 2018, and runs until the 1st of May. It showcases more than 300 images, mostly and vintage photographs publicity posters.

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksGalleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna e ContemporaneaOlivetti, typewriters Comments
The Mystery of Giulia Farnese Revealed
The Mystery of Giulia Farnese Revealed

Perhaps some of my most faithful bloglings remember the post I did on The Borgia Pope, Pinturicchio, and Giulia Farnese way back in 2012. I’m a little obsessed with the Borgias, and I’m very obsessed with art history mysteries. So when I heard that the Capitoline Museums were displaying a rare work by Pinturicchio called Baby Jesus of the Hands (which is actually a fragment of a larger work that is now lost), I was thoroughly intrigued. Check out that post for the full story on the fascinating mystery of that controversial (and eventually mutilated) work of art.

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History, ExhibitionsTiffany Parksthe borgias, pinturicchio, Giulia farnese Comment
100 years of Renato Guttuso
100 years of Renato Guttuso

Born near Palermo, Sicily in 1911, Guttuso was greatly infulenced by Socialist Realism but developed his own unique painting style that, late in his career, tended toward Surrealism. He passionately opposed fascism and the mafia, and joined the banned Italian Communist Party in 1940. He considered himself a political painter and his works often expressed his beliefs and positions, for example the above homage to the exiled leader of the communist party, Palmiro Togliatti.

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany Parks20th-century Art Comment
Paul Klee in Italy at the GNAM
Paul Klee in Italy at the GNAM

I am not going to pretend that Paul Klee, the Swiss-born German artist whose work was influenced by expressionism, cubism and surrealism, is my favorite artist. In fact, I visited the Paul Klee Museum in Berne in 2008, and I concluded that I had seen more than enough of his art to last me for the rest of my hopefully long life. So I will admit that I didn't whoop with joy when I heard that an exhibit of his work was coming to Rome. But I have to give it to him, his works are incredibly diverse and contrasting from one another. You could not possibly be bored by an exhibition of his art. Overwhelmed, perhaps. Bored, no.

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany Parks20th-century Art, Paul KleeComment
Paris in Black and White: Photographs of Robert Doisneau
Paris in Black and White: Photographs of Robert Doisneau

"Some days the mere fact of seeing feels like perfect happiness... You feel so rich you long to share your jubilation with others. The memory of such moments is my most precious possession. Maybe because there've been so few of them. A hundredth of a second here, a hundredth of a second there-- even if you put them end to end they still only add up to one, two, perhaps three seconds snatched from eternity."  Robert Doisneau

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksPhotography, Robert DoisneauComment
Vermeer in Rome
Vermeer in Rome

Yesterday I wrote about the fabulous Italy as seen from the world exhibit at the Ara Pacis, but today even more thrilling things are in store! But first, a disclaimer: a little trick curators here in Rome often indulge in is the creative naming of their exhibits. They come up with fabulous names, but they are often misleading, dropping in big names like Caravaggio and Botticelli to sell more tickets. I don't mean to disappoint you, but this is one of those exhibits.

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksVermeer, Dutch mastersComment
The Charmed Life of a Foreign Correspondent in Italy
The Charmed Life of a Foreign Correspondent in Italy

Is there a journalist alive who doesn’t—at least in some small way—envy Gregory Peck’s dashing character in Roman Holiday? And it’s not just about spending 24 hours with a classy, beautiful brunette like Audrey Hepburn. What would it be like to live on Via Margutta, zip around late-1950s Rome on a Vespa, spend your evenings playing poker with the international crowd, and dash off the odd article to your paper back home?

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History, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksComment
The Fable of Cupid and Psyche at Castel Sant'Angelo
The Fable of Cupid and Psyche at Castel Sant'Angelo

Psyche (whose name means either 'soul' or 'butterfly') is the youngest of three daughters of a king. (Although Psyche is sometimes depicted with butterfly wings, she is a mortal.) Although all three sisters are lovely, Psyche is the most beautiful by far, and people come from distant lands just for the pleasure of admiring her beauty. As you can imagine, this causes Venus, the goddess of beauty, to become enraged with jealousy.

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksComment
Inside the Vatican Secret Archive
Inside the Vatican Secret Archive

Those of you who know me well, know that I like to post about a new exhibit if not the day it opens, then at least that same week. As Lux in Arcana: The Vatican Secret Archives Revealed at the Capitoline Museums was the most highly anticipated exhibition of the year (century?) for me, it might be surprising that I have waited so long to write about it. I wrote an article on the exhibit for the Traveller, the Sunday travel magazine of both the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age. Here's an excerpt:

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History, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksVatican, Vatican History, Vatican Secret ArchivesComment
Long-lost Paintings by Michelangelo and Caravaggio: Are They or Aren't They?
Long-lost Paintings by Michelangelo and Caravaggio: Are They or Aren't They?

One thing these two shows have in common is that each has a work of art on display that has been recently attributed to one of the two passionately adored Michelangelos. At The Renaissance in Rome, the so-called Pietà of Ragusa, literally discovered behind a couch in a middle-class home in Buffalo, New York, recently restored and on display publicly for the first time, is allegedly a long-lost work by Michelangelo Buonarroti himself.

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksRenaissance, Renaissance art, Michelangelo, CaravaggioComment
Salvador Dalì: Renaissance-inspired Surrealism
Salvador Dalì: Renaissance-inspired Surrealism

While I am always up for a new exhibit, I wasn’t expecting to be blown away by this one. I showed up at the exhibit expecting to see some melting clocks and such. I don’t think it’s a mystery to anyone who reads this blog what my artistic preferences are. I have absolutely nothing against Surrealism, but it doesn’t exactly boil my blood either. Nevertheless, this exhibition did.

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksComment
A Taste of Home: The Guggenheim Comes to Rome
A Taste of Home: The Guggenheim Comes to Rome

If you're getting a bit ODed on Italian art, if Caravaggio, Tintoretto, Guercino and all the Renaissance masters are getting you down, if you're an American, like me, living in Rome and trying to make sense of this crazy country, and just need a little bit of home so that things will make sense again, then have I got an exhibit for you! (There's always something on in Rome to solve any problem!)

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksGuggenheim, American art, 20th-century ArtComment
Tintoretto Arrives in Rome
Tintoretto Arrives in Rome

I'll never forget the first time I saw a Tintoretto painting. I was in Venice for Carnival with an old friend nearly ten years ago, and we decided to visit the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. I was blown away by the immense output of this prolific painter. His works seemed to cover every wall and ceiling in each one of the countless rooms. The drama, the color, the detail; it was dazzling.

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksTintoretto, Renaissance artComment
Caravaggio, You Devil!
Caravaggio, You Devil!

If Rome can't get enough of Caravaggio, you certainly can't expect me to. In fact, there's a disgraceful lack of Caravaggio in the contents of this blog. I'm going to start remedying that right now. One of my favorite aspects of the Rome in the time of Caravaggio exhibit is that most of the works, instead of simply hanging on the wall at eye level, have been inserted into replica altars, with faux marble and porphyry, because almost all of them are part of altarpieces.

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksCaravaggio Comment
The Madonna of Loreto: Caravaggio vs Carracci
The Madonna of Loreto: Caravaggio vs Carracci

One of the best reasons to visit the Rome in the time of Caravaggio exhibit is the opportunity to study side by side two paintings of the same subject painted in the same city in the same year by two very different artists. The subject is the Madonna of Loreto. According to legend, the Holy House, where the holy family lived and Christ spent his childhood, was miraculously transported from Nazareth to Loreto, Italy in the 13th century.

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Art, ExhibitionsTiffany ParksCaravaggioComment