Four Times M: Milena Milani and Mirò in Milan
Discover the exhibition "Quattro volte M: Milena Milani and Miró in Milan," an extraordinary journey that celebrates the inextricable bond between international art and our region's ceramic tradition.
The city of Savona and nearby Albisola were, throughout the twentieth century, a crucial meeting point for the global artistic avant-garde. This exhibition celebrates one of the most fascinating intellectual unions of the era: that between the Savona-born writer and collector Milena Milani and the master of surrealism Joan Miró .
The exhibition: the deep bond between Liguria and Miró
The title "Quattro volte M" (Four Times M) recalls the initials of the protagonists and the geographic and conceptual heart of the event, which unites Milena, Miró, Milan, and the Sea (or the Manufacture) . The exhibition offers the public the opportunity to admire unique works of art, letters, archival documents, and, above all, the extraordinary artistic ceramics created by Miró in the historic kilns of Albisola.
Thanks to the synergy with the Milani Cardazzo Foundation , the exhibition allows us to rediscover the central role of Savona and its province as a cultural incubator of excellence, capable of attracting the greatest geniuses of the last century.
The role of Albisola and artistic ceramics
The exhibition focuses especially on the workmanship of terracotta and enamel. It was thanks to Milena Milani and Tullio d'Albisola that Joan Miró discovered the magic of the Ligurian kilns, translating his two-dimensional pictorial language into priceless sculptures and ceramic plates.
Did you know that?
In 2003, the exhibition of Milena Milani's extraordinary legacy to her city was inaugurated at Palazzo Gavotti, the new home of the Pinacoteca Civica di Savona: a collection that boasts twentieth-century masterpieces, works by great Italian artists such as De Chirico, De Pisis, Fontana and Capogrossi, and international artists such as Picasso, Magritte, Mirò and Dubuffet.
Each painting, in addition to constituting an exceptional page in the artistic panorama of the last century, is inextricably intertwined with Milena's crazy life in constant and symbiotic connection with the artistic world.
Milena Milani, born in Savona, was a multifaceted and unconventional artist, a key figure in Italian culture in the late twentieth century, capable of moving between writing, contemporary art, event planning, and publishing. For twenty years, she was the lifelong companion and dedicated collaborator of Carlo Cardazzo, an internationally renowned gallery owner and collector. The twentieth-century masterpieces displayed today in the Pinacoteca Civica almost entirely come from the Naviglio gallery in Milan, which the couple opened on Via Manzoni in 1946. They reflect its exhibition program, characterized by an openness to new developments in the national and international art scene while also exploring the avant-garde.
Their love and particular interest in Surrealism is underlined by the exceptional presence of paintings by Man Ray, Magritte, Delvaux and Mirò: they were among the first, together with dealers and collectors of the calibre of Peggy Guggenheim and Arturo Schwarz, to support and market them in Italy.
In May 1963, Joan Mirò arrived in Milan for his first major Italian exhibition at the Galleria del Naviglio: he immediately expressed a desire to climb the spires of the cathedral to see the city from above. Milena accompanied him and recalled Mirò "touching the sinuous tracery with the palm of his hand, tracing the relief with his index finger, a game that thrilled him."
The memories of Milani's formidable encounters with the greatest interpreters of twentieth-century culture, many of whom were the creators of the works in her collection, are collected in her writings, including The Black Angel and Other Memories from 1984.
A video will soon be presented at the Pinacoteca that will tell visitors some of these formidable stories, introducing the visit to the rooms where the precious collection is housed.
