Anna Coliva – författare

Damien Hirst enters into creative conversation with the many masterpieces of the Galleria BorgheseIn an extraordinary cultural undertaking, British artist Damien Hirst (born 1965) has launched an intense and unfiltered interaction with the works of Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, Bernini, Canova and others in Italy’s Galleria Borghese. An unparalleled and controversial celebrity of the contemporary art world, Hirst’s work is perfectly suited to be displayed in relation to the colors and materials found in the Galleria Borghese. His sculptures, made of fine materials such as bronze, Carrara marble or seductive malachite, have been put on display in rooms of the museum that house masterpieces of the modern era such as the statuary groups of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Antonio Canova’s Paolina Borghese. The resulting effect is one of surprising harmony: the Five Grecian Nudes appear natural next to Canova’s sculpture and the primitive appearance of the Lion Women of Asit Mayor is in perfect chromatic accord with the floors of the Galleria. Hirst’s new series of Colour Space paintings offers the same sense of continuity as the flow of the works hanging in the museum’s picture gallery. This comprehensive vision of the past and the present is fostered by the proximity of antique painting and contemporary painting, without frames to separate them, and without elements of signage to interrupt this immersion.

In 1917 Pablo Picasso travelled to Rome and Naples with Jean Cocteau and Igor Stravinskij. During this trip, for the first time, he could admire directly Hellenistic and Roman sculpture, that of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, but also the Roman frescoes of Pompei. The first exhibition dedicated to Picasso's sculpture to be held in Rome, and its accompanying catalogue, were conceived as a journey through the centuries that chronologically follows the interpretation of forms and different themes - stories and myths, bodies and figures, objects and fragments - in sculpture. The exhibition of masterpieces of the great Spanish master is accompanied by previously unpublished images of his sculpture studios (by Edward Quinn) that narrate the context in which these works were born. The catalogue includes essays that explore the visual and conceptual dialogue between the works of Picasso and works of the past, illustrating and examining over fifty works, some of which have never been exhibited before.

The Galleria Borghese brings together an extraordinary collection of ancient and modern sculpture within a beautifully decorated villa. This volume, dedicated to modern sculpture (Late Renaissance to Baroque to Neoclassical), marks the start of a new general catalogue of the collection.The introduction narrates the history of the collection, from its creation by Cardinal Scipione Borghese in the 17th century to its sale to the Italian Republic at the end of the 19th century. The entries are full of chronological details, new attributions, information on restorations and account for the different historical settings thanks to an accurate study of the inventory records of the villa. They include world-famous masterpieces by Algardi, Bernini and Canova among others. The sale to Napoleon of many of its Antique works of art (now in the Louvre) was key to the Borghese's commission works of ancient inspiration, the analysis of which animates the pages of another section, based on the concepts of copy and remake. The catalogue closes with a section on restoration, that gives an account of the fundamental role of 16- to 18th-century sculptors in the maintenance and transformation of the archaeological collection in relation to the villa's display requirements.Text in Italian.