I LUOGHI DEL MITO

As part of its cultural promotion activities, the Direzione Generale per i Beni Librari e gli Istituti Culturali (General Directorate for Bookshops and Cultural Institutes) has launched an extensive project entitled Art and Books aimed at documenting a cultural expedition of literary and philosophical works, classical texts and modern authors, with the contribution of contemporary artists, whose work provides a perfect complement to these texts.

The pictorial image, on the one hand, and the book, on the other, thus find an additional, and sometimes unexpected, convergence of meanings, confirming the inseparable and dialectical link between culture in its most broad sense, and artistic expressions, which are the direct reflection thereof.

The artist is in fact integrated, beyond the diversity of styles and forms, to a dense network of cultural connections that are often not immediately perceptible, but which constitute the background, the completion and often the source of inspiration.

In this sense, the “sign” and “word,” which are implicit in the activity of the artist, that of the authors, ancient and modern, but also of the librarians, apparently so distant from each other, find a common cultural space to establish a sort of dialogue, a direct link, the possibility of an encounter.

Franco Azzinari’s work in particular offers evocative and ample stimuli for research through his Places of Myth, those of Greek civilization up to its last offshoots in Magna Graecia, which rediscover their primordial natural dimension through the artist’s paintings.

Centers like Athens, Sparta, Delos, Corinth, where ancient history recorded epic events and religious beliefs identified the original places of gods and divinities, reveal in Azzinari’s work their simplest and most natural form, almost suspended in time, in an original moment placed out of the context of actual occurrences.

The texts placed in front of the works bring those spaces back to their identity, to their concreteness as place-symbol of the entire western culture.

In expressing my warm appreciation to Maestro Azzinari, to the Director of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, to the curators of the exhibition and to all those who have contributed to the success of the event, I hope that the originality of the project will be a wonderful opportunity to stimulate renewed paths to reading and to increase, through books, the level of knowledge and sensitivity of the public towards the works of some of the most valuable contemporary Italian artists.

The current guidelines in cultural promotion honor projects that provide for the presence and integration, on certain issues, of the different types of assets by which the cultural heritage of the country is categorized. Collecting and linking bibliographic, archival, historical-artistic and, where possible, photographic and filmic testimonies means expressing the documentary potential of the heritage, reconstructing entire areas of research and offering the public a wide range of cultural sources.

With these intentions, the Art and Books project, promoted by the Direzione Generale per i Beni Librari and the Istituti Culturali, combines the works of contemporary artists with the bibliographic collections of the Biblioteca Pubbliche Statali to bring out contexts, references, relationships, thematic affinities, in which art finds its direct inspiration.

In this context the exhibition dedicated to Maestro Franco Azzinari is inserted, who in his work represents, with particular artistic quality, those places in the ancient world where, between history and legend, mythical events and events took place, which are an integral part of the Western cultural tradition and which in the accompanying texts find their immediate response.

But the exhibition brings out another important meaning: the continuity between contemporary motifs and expressions with classical elements, as evidence that through this library patrimony it is possible to interpret and deepen the reasons of art even in its most current and daring artistic results.

I have written about the myths of love, war, gods and heroes, You will be wondering where these events happened, which landscapes were the backdrop for these incredible, fascinating, events. Franco Azzinari will guide you into this magical world of myths. Indeed, the ideal thing would be to read one of my books on mythology, lounging in an armchair, gazing at one of Azzinari’s beautiful paintings on the wall in front of you. Painting complements reading: you can travel in and beyond time, through history and around the world without a ticket, sitting comfortably at home. And what’s more, whenever you want to, without fear of strikes. This is the myth of art, of writing, of painting, of playing music. This is the myth of freedom. The Muses, the hostesses rather, who will accompany you on this trip, are beautiful too.

Takeny word for it.