Rauschenberg first, Prendergast next

Published: 2009 - September/October, Cultural and Artistic Paths

Through September 20th, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection is paying an outstanding homage to Robert Rauschenberg: one year after the Texan artist’s death, the Venetian museum presents 40 of his metal sculputures, for the first time in Italy; sculptures created from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, assembling and revitalizing a wide variety of waste materials, from traffic signs to old car tailpipes.The Collection’s autumn season starts on October 10th with a tribute to one of North America’s most important modern artists of the early 20th century: Maurice Prendergast (born 1858, St. John’s, Canada; died 1924, New York). This exhibition, curated by Nancy Mowll Mathews and Elizabeth Kennedy, is the first ever to present Prendergast’s works in Italy, and it reunites the paintings the artist realized during his two Italian journeys at the turn of the century. In June 1898, he came to Venice, first destination of his voyage, then went on to Padua, Florence, Siena, Assisi, Orvieto, Rome, Naples and Capri, returning home late in 1899. The prolific work prompted by this first journey settled his artistic development that had originated in his closeness to the avant-garde of Paris, whereas his experiences during the second journey, a long stay in Venice from August of 1911 to January of 1912, gave his works a more formal spin, directing his style towards symbolism. Prendergast’s Italian works as a whole are among the most typical and illustrative in the history of post-impressionist North American art; more than 60 of them can be seen in this exhibition – oils, watercolors and monotypes –, among them a special group of Venice-related works, capturing intimate and evocative city views, scenes from every-day life on the stage of alleys, bridges and squares, inviting to set out on a survey of the lagoon city, whereas photos, motion pictures, tourist guidebooks and travel ads are drawing a vivid picture of Italy’s geography, society and habits at the turn of the 20th century. The presentation of those works in Italy, where they’ve actually been created, opens up a new perspective on Prendergast’s art, and adds to a deepened comprehension of Modernism in the early 1900s, as well as of Prendergast’s role in the evolvement of modern art in North America.
The exhibition is complemented by a series of three conferences elaborating on some central themes of Prendergast’s works, which are taking place on September 30th, October 14th and October 28th, each time at the Venetian Institute for Science, Letters and the Arts, Campo Santo Stefano 2847, at 7 p.m.; entrance is free.