Italian post-WWII art stars in New York

(ANSA) - New York, March 4 - Fausto Melotti's poetic ceramic sculptures from the Olnick Spanu Collection and Lucio Fontana's "space explorations" are among masterworks showcased in New York thanks to a loan by Intesa Sanpaolo Bank.
    Melotti's vases evoking nature with flowers, seashells and birds are on display at the Italian Consulate while the Italian Cultural Institute next door showcases artists including Fontana.
    "Italy is not a military super power but the super power of soft power, of culture as bearer of peace", said Italy's Consul General in New York Francesco Genuardi, inaugurating the twin exhibits dedicated to post-WWII Italian art.
    The two events were scheduled to coincide with a leading contemporary art event in New York - the Armory show on 20th and 21st century art.
    At the Armory, two blocks from the Consulate, a piece of Italy is starring with the great return of Roy Lichtensrein's work of the gallery founded by the legendary Leo Castelli.
    There is also a pavilion entirely dedicated by Houser and Wirth to the recent installation "Ether en Flocons" by Modena artist Roberto Cuoghi.
    The installation is about metamorphosis and shows 10 birds in agar agar and pork jelly left to the elements, lyophilized for a month, and finally vacuum-sealed.
    The gallery, one of the most important on the international art scene, has announced during the Armory that Cuoghi will be among the artists it represents, the only one who is still alive.
    Meanwhile the Met Breuer is showcasing Lucio Fontana.
    Two masterpieces are on display, on loan from Intesa Sanpaolo, which brought to the Consulate an additional four, as well as about 20 masterworks from leading artists from the 1950s and 60s including Pietro Manzoni and Enrico Castellani.
    The central theme of the masterworks is the connection between space and painting.
    "Art is one of the sectors in which we are most active", said Intesa Sanpaolo's Chief Financial Officer Stefano Del Punta, recalling the traditional role of banks since the Renaissance period in supporting art and culture.
    Meanwhile the Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, the museum on the Hudson river co-founded by art collectors Giorgio Spanu and Nancy Olnick, has inaugurated an exhibit on Melotti - a special event, said director Vittorio Calabrese.
    The show was the "first collaboration in New York with Italian institutions and great art fairs", he said.
    Melotti, who considered abstraction in close connection with music and architecture, experimented with ceramic since the start of his career after World War Two, considering it an "art material like marble and bronze" and "even more interesting" because of the "mystery of its creation".