Illustrazioni per libri inesistenti. Artisti con Manganelli. Curated by Andrea Cortellessa.  Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome. 21.09.2023 – 07.01.2024

The exhibition Illustrazioni per libri inesistenti. Artisti con Manganelli intends to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the great Italian intellectual, writer and essayist Giorgio Manganelli (15 November 1922 – 28 May 1990). The exhibition, curated by Andrea Cortellessa, features works by artists about whom he wrote or who in various ways were linked by friendship or a genuine collaborative relationship with the writer.

In Rome, Giorgio Manganelli entertained important relations with the art world between the 1960s and 1970s, weaving friendships as intense, if not more so, than those he had with literati of the same generation. During the 1980s, also due to his acquaintance with Lea Vergine, a second moment of Manganelli’s artistic passion developed mainly in Milan. The Italian artists participating in the exhibition include Gianfranco Baruchello, Lucio Fontana, Fausto Melotti, Carol Rama, Toti Scialoja, Gastone Novelli, Achille Perilli, Franco Nonnis, Giovanna Sandri, Giosetta Fioroni and Luigi Serafini.

The friendship between Gianfranco Baruchello and Giorgio Manganelli lasted throughout the 1960s. Manganelli used to visit Baruchello in his Roman studio and attend the exhibitions that the artist inaugurated in Rome and Milan, such as the solo exhibition Uso e Manutenzione in 1965 at the Galleria Schwarz in Milan, for which he also wrote a text for the catalogue.

At the exhibition Illustrazioni per libri inesistenti. Artisti con Manganelli Baruchello exhibited two works from that period, a canvas entitled Tramonto morale (1964) shown at his solo exhibition in Milan and an openable object, exemplifying the artist’s experimentation at the time, entitled Pourquoi un chien ne peut il simuler la douleur? (1965).