Artribune Review

The great international exhibition "CARNET DE VOYAGE. Real or imaginary journeys in contemporary art" curated by Roberto Borra and Karina Lukasik is staged in the Castle of Costigliole d'Asti, one of the symbolic places of the identity crossroads between Langhe, Roero and Monferrato. At the vernissage of the exhibition the rooms of the Castle will be pervaded by the fascinating musical melodies of the young cellist Clara Piccoli selected by the Conservatory of Turin for the Stage of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022
The exhibition is enriched by the traveling exhibition in small format of the "Mipac 20x20 Museum" curated by Alberto Bongini and Alessandro Merlo, the fourth stage of an innovative project because in addition to its itinerant characteristics, in each exhibition it is renewed with new works by international artists and is transformed chameleonically into unpredictable forms of site-specific installation. The project conceived by the curators of the exhibition, stems from the collaboration between the Cultural Association Fly Art of Turin, the Castle and the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Costigliole.
The exhibition is also sponsored by the Museo della Permanente in Milan which presents 4 of its artists, the Ugo Guidi Museum in Massa, the Gierut Artistic Documentary Committee of Pietrasanta (Lu), the Brancati Cultural Movement of Scicli (Rg), Axtra Digital Art of Turin and the artistic group The Artist's Pool based in London but representing selected artists from all over the world.
The exhibition "Carnets de voyage. Real or imaginary journeys in contemporary art" is configured as a sort of modern tribute to the traveling artists who in the eighteenth century undertook the Grand Tour in Italy, exhibiting on their return a large sample of drafts, drawings, watercolors, tables and canvases as evidence of their journey. In the exhibition at the Castle of Costigliole, painting, sculpture, photography, fiber art, digital art, engraving, installation dialogue in a sort of kaleidoscopic interweaving of real or imaginary journeys that capture The invisible that escapes everyone's gaze but not that of the visionary and introspective artists selected for this exhibition where the dialogue between the arts becomes a real experiential journey.
The exhibition presents a wide range of artists from the most varied Italian regions and from various parts of the world: England, Scotland, Poland, Denmark, Iran, China, United States. In the exhibition, visitors can admire the artistic photographs of Anne Conway, British photographer of National Geographic, New York Times, Bell'Europa and other prestigious illustrated magazines. Important is the presence of works by the late master Ezio Gribaudo, permanently in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, at the MoMa in New York, at the Metropolitan Museum and in many other international museums.
There is also an unpublished work by the master Francesco Tabusso, a nude woman with a dedication on the front that he gave to his dear friend Piergiorgio Ravinale known as Piergi present with his works in one of the rooms of the castle. Ravinale great illustrator and advertiser of the 50s / 60s proponent of the press campaigns of Martini and Rossi of Gibaud was also a painter pupil of the master Felice Casorati. A further added value of the exhibition is represented by the works on Venice by Carmelo Candiano, an important member of the Group of Nine of Scicli, the cenacle of artists celebrated by Renato Guttuso, which was headed by the master Piero Guccione, one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. Also worth mentioning is the presence of two oil paintings by the Chinese academic master of art Jin Yu of which the Cultural Association Fly will present in April a major solo exhibition at the Artron Art Center in Shenzen in China, with the critical texts in the catalog by Roberto Borra and the patronage of the Mipac Museum.
The sumptuous Hall of Mirrors of the Castle, whose precious frescoes have recently been restored, houses an extraordinary photograph by Sebastiao Salgado that evokes Dante's journey he documented in 1985 during a historic reportage in the Brazilian gold mine of Serra Pelada. "CARNET DE VOYAGE. Real or imaginary journeys in contemporary art" presents itself as a spring invitation to travel with an open mind, to consider with different eyes the very concept of travel, not necessarily characterized by a geographical factor but which must be extended in the specific case of this exhibition, to an exploration of inner spaces and social and cultural realities.
An exhibition where the "Dreamcatchers" by Renee Rilexie immerse visitors in the heart of the artistic experience that draws inspiration from the culture of the Native Americans and where the concreteness of reality is put before the abstraction of the mystical and imaginary experience of art. An exhibition that does not escape the complexity of the contemporary world animated by violent jolts and reverberations of the past that manifest themselves in fierce forms of social, political and cultural repression. Flavia Nasrin Testa, an artist of Iranian origins, addresses the theme of repression in the series of the project "Woman, life, freedom" dedicated to Iranian women with an ironic, irreverent and corrosive spirit.
In "Carnet de Voyage. Real or imaginary journeys in contemporary art" manifests the essence of the experiences of artists who translate into gestures, signs and thoughts the great journey in search of that "light within things" that even when it may appear obscure, is salvific because art is able to reveal the arcane, to go beyond the fickle appearances, to offer us the way out that escapes the gaze of all but not that of the artists...