Contemporary spirituality: Art and jewelery in private collections

The exhibition entitled Contemporary Spirituality, promoted by the Municipality of Valenza and curated by Lia Lenti and Rino Tacchella, was inaugurated and will remain open until 18 February. Art and jewelery in private collections. The exhibition is the first important initiative realized on the occasion of the celebrations for the four hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore in Valenza.
The exhibition, dedicated to the theme of the sacred in the figurative arts and in the goldsmith arts, presents a selection of paintings, sculptures and goldsmith works produced between the 20th and 21st centuries, centuries “in which there are countless artistic currents and multiple interpretations of the themes sacred” intended “for new churches that are built or restructured by adapting them to new communication needs” which allow us to reflect, in the contemporary dimension, on one of the key themes of the history of art.
Through the works on display, it is possible to question the influence of the sacred in contemporary art in terms of content, themes and aesthetics, and how, in the interpretation of the artists, spirituality relates to faith, revelation, mystery. The sense of the sacred will therefore be sought in the most canonical symbols and materials but also through a spirituality traced in the immateriality of the individual feeling of the artist.
Contemporary spirituality is also the theme addressed by the two artists and the two goldsmith companies of the Valencian district who are participating in the new edition of the Fragile beauty project in 2022. Gabriele Garbolino Rù and Sabrina Milazzo present within the goldsmith’s art section the jewels born from the synergistic collaboration with the companies Gioj and Orsini. Two unpublished jewels in which it is possible to identify the research and individual paths that inspired the inspiration of the two artists involved.
In addition to the artisan and professional goldsmiths, other artists are also involved in the goldsmith section such as Saverio Cavalli, Guillaume Corneille, Chiara Dynys, Emilio Isgrò, Aldo Mondino, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Laura Rivalta and Luigi Visconti.
Among the painters and sculptors who were active in the twentieth century we find a Crucifix and some warmers in white clay and bronze by the Casalese symbolist Leonardo Bistolfi, a terracotta tile with a Deposition part of a Via Crucis created by Arturo Martini at the end of the ’20, a Madonna of Loreto of futurist derivation wrapped in a dress in which biplanes stand out landing on a wavy sea by Umberto Mastroianni, a
Very expressionist Deposition by Bruno Cassinari, a Wildtian marble with a Deposition by Egle Pozzi Biginelli from Alessandria, a Madonna with Child in glazed ceramic, shaped by compressing the clay with his bare hands by Lucio Fontana, a large painting by Piero Ruggeri and could not miss Pietro Morando with a couple of Annunciations and Madonnas with Child classifiable among his early works.