Albissola Marina | MuDA Exhibition Center and various locations | 7 October 2023 – 7 January 2024

A year and a half after the Master's passing Sergio Dangelo (19.04.1932 – 4.01.2022), the city of Albissola Marina pays homage to his genius and memory with the presentation of a book on the artist, supported by De Mari Foundation and an exhibition promoted by Municipality of Albissola Marina, both edited by Paola Grappiolo, Gallery owner and curator active in Albisola for thirty-two years, historical friend of Sergio Dangelo. The event was strongly supported by many fellow citizens of Albisola, the same friends who constantly accompanied and supported Dangelo in his poetic and artistic forays into the now legendary Ligurian city of ancient ceramic tradition. The initiative is sponsored by the Liguria Region, the City of Savona and the city of Albisola Superiore.

“Sergio Dangelo's life developed from a young age within the international events of the avant-garde art of his time; he had met André Breton, founder and leader of the surrealist movement, in front of which he had made a solemn act of eternal surrealism. The child prodigy of the Italian neo-avant-garde spoke seven languages (but “well” only four, he wanted to clarify) and he had a profound knowledge of Japanese culture (he was also a Kendo master, as well as art). Together with my wife, in 1951, together with Enrico Baj he founded the Nuclear Art Movement, whose poster was presented the following year at the Galerie Apollo in Brussels, where Dangelo was at home. In those years, Nuclear Art competed with Lucio Fontana's Spatialism for the scepter of the Milanese avant-garde. In the early 1950s, together with your inseparable life partner, later his wife, Carla Bordoni, Dangelo had begun to explore the ceramic kilns of Albisola and had met Tullio d'Albisola (1899-1971). He had organized with him, together with Asger Jorn, the International Ceramics Meeting, which took place in the summer of 1954 in the Giuseppe Mazzotti factory 1903, and it was always Dangelo who invited us to Albissola, for the occasion, the Chilean artist Roberto Sebastian Matta and the Belgian art critic Théodore Koenig. At the Milan Triennale of that same year, Dangelo curated the exhibition of the ceramics coming out of the G. kilns. Mazzotti 1903 during the Meeting… Since then and in the years to come, wherever his intense life and artistic career took him, Dangelo always returned to Albissola".
(cit. from the text by Luca Bochicchio in the catalogue).

In 2008, Sergio Dangelo was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Albissola Marina with the following motivation: “World-famous artist who has always been a friend and ambassador in the world of Albisola”.

EVENT PROGRAM

The artist's exhibition, world premiere after his passing, will allow the vision of well 51 works made from the 1950s to shortly before his disappearance: ceramics, paintings, collages, hand-made, boxes, coming from private collections in the area and from the Atelier Dangelo in Milan. The event will be an opportunity to exhibit unpublished works, accompanied by historical documentation of great interest for enthusiasts and scholars of the Surrealist Movement.

The presentation of the book and inauguration of the exhibition will be Saturday 7 October 2023 (hours 16.00) and the exhibition will end on Sunday 7 January 2024. The event develops with an installation inside the MuDA Exhibition Center (Albisola Widespread Museum) and in the territory of Albissola Marina with a route through the tunnels (Bludiprussia Center), in the furnaces (manufacturing: tickets, St. George, G. Mazzotti 1903), frequented by the artist over time, in public places (Albissola underpass) and private individuals who preserve his works (Hotel Garden).

EXHIBITION ROUTE

Inside the room of the MuDA Exhibition Center, paintings and ceramics will be presented, arranged in chronological order, Ceramic plates from the early years of Albisola will be displayed inside display cases, villages, formal, hand-made and bronzes. At the entrance a graphic image, studied to this, will welcome visitors with a photo of the artist set in Albisola, accompanied by his biography also in English.

During the presentation, which will take place in the conference room of the MuDA Exhibition Center, a video on Sergio Dangelo will be shown, made in 2009, by Vincenzo Vinotti.

The event will be divided into a city ​​route which includes stages, following the urban fabric of Albissola Marina, a stop at the Viglietti ceramics laboratory where a ceramic panel from 1992, a visit to the Bludiprussia Gallery (of which Dangelo is among the founders) which will offer an unprecedented selection of Boîtes by the Maestro coming directly from the Milanese Atelier Dangelo, a walk to the underpass of Piazza del Popolo in Albissola Marina where his ceramic panel is positioned: Heavenly love, a visit to the factories: San Giorgio where we will find some ceramic plates painted by the Maestro and in Giuseppe Mazzotti 1903 (who, the exhibition of ceramic works and paintings by Dangelo, it will be curated by Alice Bolcano) until arriving at the Hotel Garden specially set up by the family, where the visitor will be able to admire numerous paintings, ceramics, two installations on the facade and a ceramic panel by the pool where the visit will end.

PRESENTATION

The exhibition will be presented on 7 October at 16.00, in the MuDa conference room in Albissola Marina, by the professor Francesco Tedeschi (Professor of History of Contemporary Art at the Catholic University of Milan and curator of the exhibitions at the Gallerie di Italia Foundation in Milan of Banca Intesa, as well as a dear friend of Dangelo).

BOOK/CATALOGUE

The book, edited by Vanillaedizioni and edited by Paola Grappiolo, will be presented at the exhibition and includes: an in-depth text on the figure and works of the professor Dangelo Francesco Tedeschi, a text by Luca Bochicchio, director of MuDA, the texts of his two children Amanda and Simone Reggiori Dangelo, an opening text from the Mayor of Albissola Marina Gianluca Nasuti is one of Luciano Pasquale, President of the Agostino de Mari Foundation of Savona (who contributed to the publication) and nine testimonies from illustrious figures from the world of Ligurian culture, or just friends, who collaborated for this tribute to Dangelo (Paola Boggi, Paola Grappiolo, Eugenio Lanfranco, Silvio Riolfo Marengo, Federico Marzinot, Tullio Mazzotti, Mino Puppo, Sandro Ricaldone, Rino Tacchella). The volume will be completed by images of the Master's works and various photographic documentation.

Sergio Dangelo. A surrealist journey passing through Albisola
edited by Paola Grappiolo

MuDA Exhibition Center
via dell'Oratorio 2, Albissola Marina

7 October 2023 – 7 January 2024
Inauguration: Saturday 7 October, hours 16.00

Hours: from Tuesday to Sunday 10.00-12.00 and 16.00-18.00
Monday closed

Free entry

Urban exhibition route:

Bludiprussia Artistic and Cultural Center
7 October – 19 November 2023
Hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday 16.00 – 18.30

Hotel Garden
7 October - 11 November 2023

Ceramic manufacturing
Ceramiche G. Mazzotti 1903
San Giorgio ceramics
Viglietti ceramics

External wall installations
Artists' underpass
Hotel Garden

Book/catalogue: Vanillaedizioni (MuDA Books series)

Info:
MuDA Exhibition Center – such. 019 4002110

Municipality of Albissola Marina
Culture Office – such. 019 40029280
cultura@comune.albissolamarina.sv.it