Castello Sforzesco

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Piazza Castello, 20121 Milan
Porta Santo Spirito entrance (Cadorna side)
Salette della Grafica

MON CLOSED
TUE-SUN 10 A.M. – 5:30 P.M.

ARTISTS:
Alberto Martini
Vincenzo Agnetti (Collezione Ramo)

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The exhibition investigates the theme of the allegory of death and the dance macabre, addressed by Martini in L’Albo della morte (1894-1896), an exceptional cycle of drawings, clearly inspired by the Nordic, to go as far as the famous postcards of the European Dance macabre. It will also be possible to appreciate the desecrating and satirical reading that the artist gives to the events – political and social – linked to the start of the First War, as well as precious examples of European graphics, also kept in the Castello’s collections, dedicated precisely to the theme of the Totentanz, produced both in the high epoch (Hans Holbein the Younger) and during the nineteenth century (Alfred Rethel, James Ensor and Félicien Rops), up to the evidence of his contemporaries (such as Gaetano Previati and Luigi Russolo).

Exhibited alongside the extraordinary calligraphic punctuality of Alberto Martini’sAlbo della morte is an iconic work of Vincenzo Agnetti’s production Forgotten pages memorised, a 1971 collage whose white outline of pages frames a black void.

The pages have been forgotten from memory, the die-cut box in the center makes each overlapping sheet an anguished absolute void. Culture according to the artist is like food that turns into energy, so it becomes forgetfulness once assimilated, but at the same time it is introjected and directs our actions. So emptiness is not absence but becomes individual intention and action.