Baselitz and Fontana in Dialogue at Thaddaeus Ropac’s New Italian Home
In Milan, Thaddaeus Ropac did not choose just any place for his latest venture. The Austrian gallerist transformed the Palazzo Belgioioso, an 18th-century architectural gem designed by Giuseppe Piermarini, into his new Italian home. The gallery’s inauguration, led by Elena Bonanno di Linguaglossa, was a three-day event: three days of private views, cocktail parties, and exclusive dinners at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, transformed for the occasion into a stage for Milan’s cultural elite. Among the distinguished guests were Roberto Bolle, Gilberto Zorio, Richard Deacon, Grazia Toderi, Sylvie Fleury, Yan Pei Ming, Francesco Vezzoli, Barnaba Fornasetti, Stefano Boeri, Ilaria Tronchetti Provera, Pierre Yovanovitch, Fabrice Hergott, Imran Qureshi, Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Martina Mondadori, Bernard Blistène, Luca Massimo Barbero, Maria Theresa von Thurn und Taxis, Aimone and Olga di Savoia-Aosta and Carla Sozzani.
The inaugural exhibition, “L’aurora viene”, is a remarkable showcase, presenting an unexpected yet compelling dialogue between Georg Baselitz and Lucio Fontana. The two never met, yet the Italian-Argentine master profoundly influenced the German artist, who still maintains a studio in Italy. In the gallery, Baselitz’s monumental bronzes and recent paintings—suspended figures, dark centers, apparitions emerging from shadow—stand alongside a selection of Fontana’s works from the 1930s to the 1960s, generously loaned by the Foundation. Among them, a Fine di Dio in vivid pink stands out as the pinnacle of Fontana’s research.
The thread connecting the two artists runs through fissures and voids: Fontana’s cosmic cuts open the canvas to new dimensions, echoing in Baselitz’s darkened openings. In both, destruction and hope coincide. Fontana was opening a new dimension for the Space Age; Baselitz overturns bodies and conventions to free himself from the weight of matter. The rest is a game of echoes and references: playful titles, words extending the work, domestic ironies lightening otherwise radical gestures. “Bringing Baselitz and Fontana into dialogue in Milan is a dream come true,” emphasizes Thaddaeus Ropac, “because here Fontana wrote decisive pages in art history, and Baselitz found an imaginary interlocutor who has accompanied him for decades.” It is less a matter of formal affinity than of shared energy: art that does not represent but evokes, that does not describe but announces.
And the next step is already announced: from November 21st, Palazzo Belgioioso will host a double solo show featuring VALIE EXPORT and Ketty La Rocca, two key figures in visual and linguistic experimentation around the body, feminism, and radicality. A clear signal of the direction the new space intends to pursue.
Text: Germano D’Acquisto
Photos: Ludovica Arcero
Installation Views: Roberto Marossi. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, London · Paris · Salzburg · Milan · Seoul.
