Fortunato Depero e Gilbert Clavel

Futurismo = Sperimentazione
Artopoli

The exhibition is in the vein of the masters of the 20th century and offers an insight into the creative collaboration between Swiss scholar Gilbert Clavel and Rovereto-born futurist Fortunato Depero: In particular, their contribution is examined in the context of the artistic colony formed in Capri and Anacapri from the 1550s known as "Artopoli", which was actively frequented by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Benedetta Cappa, Enrico Prampolini, Francesco Cangiullo, Julius Evola and, for a brief period, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, not to mention Michele Semenov, Sergej Djaghilev and the dancer Léonide Massine.

The exhibition concentrates on Depero's pictorial and intellectual research, starting with the illustrations he produced for Clavel and culminating in the pinnacle of his theatrical experimentation that led to the Balli Plastici. Fortunato Depero (Fondo, 30 March 1892 - Rovereto, 29 November 1960) is one of the great protagonists of Futurism.

A painter, illustrator, set and costume designer, he worked to create a language of experimentation that was both poetic and abstract. In 1917, he met the scholar Gilbert Clavel (Kleinhüningen, 29 May 1883 - Basel, 6 September 1927) in Rome, with whom he formed - first in Anacapri and then in Positano - a fraternal friendship testified by numerous letters, documents and portraits, and which led to the creation of innovative projects.

Central is Depero's relationship with the Torre Fornillo, an evocative building owned by Clavel, a place of art, poetry and experimentation. From the studies for costumes and set designs made for Le chant du rossignol with music by Igor Stravinsky and commissioned by Sergei Djaghilev, the lives of Fortunato Depero and Gilbert Clavel became even more intertwined: the eclectic Swiss scholar commissioned the artist to make the illustrations for the novella Un istituto per suicidi (A Suicide Institute).

In 1917, their collaboration led to the creation of Balli Plastici, which saw the artistic participation of several well-known musicians of the time, such as Alfredo Casella, Gerald Tyrwhitt, Francesco Malipiero and Bela Bartòk (who signed with the pseudonym Chemenov).

On display in the rooms of the m.a.x. museum will be over ninety works including sketches, studies, sketches, paintings and wooden puppets, tapestries, a maquette, vintage photographs and letters (some of which have never been seen before) that highlight the intense relationship between Clavel's aesthetic conception and the artistic contribution of Depero's work.

The exhibition is being held in collaboration with the MART Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Trento and Rovereto and boasts the synergy of prestigious lending institutions, including the State Archives in Basel, the Clavel Foundation in Basel and the Hercolani Collection in Rome; loans from valuable private collections are also essential.