Gianfranco Baruchello, Grande effetto Palomar, 1963.
From 13 October 2023 to 4 February 2024, Scuderie del Quirinale host the exhibition Favoloso Calvino. Il mondo come opera d’arte. Carpaccio, de Chirico, Gnoli, Melotti e gli altri, curated by Mario Barenghi, to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the famous writer Italo Calvino.
The exhibition highlights the variety and richness of Calvino’s representations of the human being’s relationship with reality. One hundred years after his birth, he continues to emerge as one of the most appreciated contemporary classics, providing new generations of readers with inspiration and tools for understanding their time. The exhibition presents visitors with a journey through Calvino’s imagination, highlighting the way he interacted with the visual arts, contributing and receiving various critical insights.
Presented in the exhibition is the canvas Grande effetto Palomar (1963), a work in which Gianfranco Baruchello experiments with painting as a means for moving on a pictorial surface that becomes a field open to suggestions and ideas. The canvas is here treated essentially as a mental space that turns towards unprecedented directions of thought, finding a parallel with the activity of the observatory on Mount Palomar. Also on display is a 1969 letter by Italo Calvino addressed to Gianfranco Baruchello, attesting the relationship of friendship and esteem between the two. Finally, Fondazione Baruchello also lent the catalogue and poster of the exhibition Gianfranco Baruchello held in New York in 1966 at the Cordier & Ekstrom gallery, for which Calvino wrote a text entitled The Universal Point.