Chiara and Francesco Carraro Collection. A Twentieth-Century Overview - New Layout

The permanent collection of the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna di Ca’ Pesaro has undergone a comprehensive rehanging: in conjunction with the 57th Visual Arts Biennale, from 9 May, 2017, room will have been made for the “rebels”, about 60 new works from the storerooms and the arrival of the Chiara and Francesco Carraro Collection. Also on display will be groups of works from the collections of Ileana Sonnabend and Panza di Biumo.
The new display layout of the permanent holdings of Ca’ Pesaro has been completely recon- sidered in its guidelines – under the careful direction of Gabriella Belli, director of the Fonda- zione Musei Civici di Venezia and Elisabetta Barisoni, the museum’s manager – thanks also to the arrival of 82 works from the fine collection of Chiara and Francesco Carraro, obtained on long-term deposit from the Venetian Museums.
About 60 works from the civic collections leave the storerooms to be displayed in the monu- mental spaces of the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna di Venezia. An entire room is ded- icated to “The Rebels of Ca’ Pesaro”, or “capesarini”, who between 1908 and 1924 were the exponents of the historic Bevilacqua La Masa exhibitions which, under the direction of Nino Barbantini, provided a lively counterpoint to the Venice Biennali, showcasing a young gener- ation of artists, including Boccioni, Casorati, Gino Rossi, Arturo Martini. There will also be a space dedicated to Klimt, placing his Judith II in relation with works on paper of especial impor- tance, by artists from Ensor to Munch, and Odilon Redon to Felicien Rops.
Two splendid rooms will be filled by the glass masterpieces and magnificent paintings of the Carraro Collection: Antonio Donghi, Giorgio Morandi, Giorgio de Chirico, Arturo Martini and other exponents of the Italian Novecento, will be place in relation with each other as they were in the collector’s house, with a precious nucleus of twentieth-century glass, by Bellotto to Zecchin, Scarpa and Venini.
Following these are some rooms devoted to twentieth-century figurative art, linked to the mag- ical realism of Casorati, de Chirico, Carrà, Martini and the return to ‘classicism’ in the period between the two wars.
A focus on international presences in the museum’s collection will see a rotation of masterpieces by Calder and Kandinsky, and works on paper by Klee, Picasso and Matisse, some exhibited for the first time and testimony to the far-sightedness of the City of Venice and of the many no- table individuals who, at least until the early sixties, contributed to the development of the city’s contemporary art collections.
A room devoted to the three greatest masters of twentieth-century Italian art, Burri, Afro and Fontana, will close the exhibition of the permanent collection, with works loaned generously by the foundations responsible for these artists. On show will be works from their emerging years, the sixties that saw them as protagonists of the transformation of Italian art after World War II, with a creative impetus of perhaps unrepeatable originality.
On the top floor, however, confirming the role and prestige gained nationally and internationally by Ca’ Pesaro and Venice’s museums, the public will be able to admire a profound investigation into Arte Povera, with works from the Collection of Ileana Sonnabend, enriched by some mas- terpieces that have recently arrived in Venice, alongside a selection of American artists of the eighties and nineties, selected from the 23 paintings of the recent Panza di Biumo donation. 

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