Fausto Melotti
This exhibition explores the multi-faceted work of Fausto Melotti (1901-1986), one of Italy’s greatest artists of the inter and post-war periods. Melotti’s abstract sculptures in brass combine elements from nature, geometry, and music. He also achieved great success as a ceramist, producing his meditative ‘Teatrini’ as well as plaques, tiles, tableware, jewelry and statuettes. Gathering approximately 20 metallic sculptures and more than 70 ceramic pieces, this exhibition primarily includes works whose photographs were published in the seminal architecture and design magazine Domus. The exhibition follows the critical perspective of the magazine, which chronicled the developments in Melotti’s career between 1948 and 1968.
Until January 17th, 2016 at Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Villa Paloma, Monaco
www.nmnm.mc
Anatolia
Home of Eternity
From Hittite citadels to the Ottoman court, from Cybele to the Olympian gods, from Christianity to Islam: Anatolia is a land of migrations, where civilisations and cultures have succeeded one another, co-existing and blending for thousands of years. This exhibition highlights this remarkable continuity of cults and cultures across 12 millennia of rituals, from the earliest Anatolian civilisations to the Ottoman Empire. More than 200 objects – many of which have never been shown before – from more than 30 museums across Turkey will illustrate the richness and diversity of Anatolia’s heritage.
Until January 17th, 2016 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
www.bozar.be
Zurbaran
Master of Detail
Against the background of the Counter-Reformation, Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664) succeeded more than virtually any other painter in conveying a mystical conception of belief, by means of his almost hyper-realistic style of painting. This extensive retrospective at the Museum Kunstpalast will be the first to present the artist in a German-speaking country and to explore the totality of Zurbarán’s career, from his early creations through his later masterpieces. Alongside major works drawn from well-known collections, the show will also include paintings which have never or rarely been presented to the public, as well as new discoveries and recently restored works. Also, for the first time a selection of eight fascinating still-lifes from the small œuvre of Zurbarán’s highly gifted son Juan de Zurbarán (1620-1649), who trained in his father’s workshop, will be presented.
Until January 31st, 2016 at the Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf, Germany
www.smkp.de
Alex Katz
This Is Now
A painter whose work is both fixed in the canon of postwar American art and in the avant garde of painting today, Alex Katz emerged in the 1950s as a figurative painter in an age of abstraction, challenging critics who shunned imagery in art, especially figuration. This exhibition explores the development of landscape in the artist’s career over the last 25 years, revealing the fundamental but often unacknowledged role that it has played in Katz’s work. It features 35 works in which he employs a ‘grammar of abstraction’ to convey the appearance of things as they are both felt and perceived in the present tense, the now.
Until February 7th at the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
www.guggenheim-bilbao.es
Joaquín Torres-García
The Arcadian Modern
This major retrospective is devoted to the art of Joaquín Torres-García, one of the most complex and emblematic modern masters from the first half of the 20th century. The exhibition embraces the artist’s entire œuvre – drawings, paintings, objects, sculptures, and original artist notebooks and rare publications ranging from the late 19th century to the 1940s—presented in a chronological display with a thematic approach. A sequence of chapters focuses on two key moments: the period from 1923 to 1933, when Torres-García participated in various European early-modern avant-garde movements while establishing his own signature pictographic/Constructivist style; and 1935 to 1943, when he produced one of the most striking repertoires of synthetic abstraction upon his return to Uruguay.
Until February 15th, 2016 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York
www.moma.org
Ennesima
An Exhibition of Seven Exhibitions on Italian Art
Not one exhibition of Italian art but, literally, an ‘exhibition of exhibitions’ that, via seven paths, tries to explore the last 50 years of contemporary art in Italy, collecting more than 120 works and over 70 artists, from the early 60s through to the present day, in a display extending over the whole first floor of the Milan Triennale. The title is inspired by a work by Giulio Paolini, Ennesima, the first version of which, dated 1973, is divided into seven paintings. This gives the number of exhibition projects seven independent exhibitions, in the form of notes or suggestions that explore different aspects, links, coincidences and discrepancies, as well as the exhibition grammar in the recent history of Italian art.
Until March 6th, 2016 at Milan Triennale, Italy
www.triennale.org
