Caravaggio, Abramovic star in new shows

(ANSA) - Rome, September 28 - This weekend's art openings run from the absolutely classic, with masterpieces by Caravaggio in Milan, to the very contemporary, with a video installation by Marina Abramovic in Alba. In Rome, an exhibition by young South African artist Kemang Wa Lehulere shows his interpretation of his native country.
    MILAN - One of the most highly anticipated shows of the year, which has already registered more than 60,000 reservations, opens on September 29 at Milan's Palazzo Reale: 'Inside Caravaggio'. Running through January 28, the exhibition puts 20 masterpieces from Italian and foreign collections on display alongside new, essential research regarding the Baroque painter and his methods. Diagnostic evaluations establish, contrary to prior belief, that there were preparatory drawings under the paintings as well as visible remakes evidenced by hidden figures. Among the works on display from foreign museums are "Holy Family with St. John" on loan from New York's Met Museum and "Salome with the Head of John the Baptist", on loan from London's National Gallery.
    ROME - The first ever show in Italy by South African artist Kemang Wa Lehulere, "Bird Song", opened September 27 at Rome's MAXXI and runs through November 26, with installations, videos, paintings, drawings, and music. The exhibition is a sort of personal composition, made up of the many diverse voices from the artist's homeland. Kemang shows the society under apartheid, which he lived through as a young man with his family. The show is centred on a dialogue between the artist's work and that of the self-taught artist Gladys Mgudlandlu (1917-1979), among the first black women in South Africa to show her work in galleries there in the 1960s. Mgudlandlu mostly painted landscapes and birds, earning her the moniker "Bird Lady". ALBA - The church of San Domenico in Alba is hosting the video-installation "Holding the Milk", part of the 2009 artistic project by Marina Abramovic titled "The Kitchen, Homage to Saint Therese". It opens September 28 and remains on display through November 12. The artistic project is made up of nine self-portraits and three videos, all which were shot in the kitchen of the former convent La Laboral in Gijon, a Carthusian monastery long since abandoned, where nuns used to take in orphaned children. The work features the life of the mystic St.
    Theresa of Avila, blending it with memories from the artist's childhood.