Oltre il giardino. La natura nell’opera di Francesco Somaini

The exhibition and the accompanying catalogue deal for the first time in its complexity with a topic cherished by the artist from Como (1926-2005): the idea of Nature, decked in an aura of sacredness, of the garden and the landscape conceived as a “good original place to be preserved”, a source of inspiration and a metaphor for beauty. The theme is addressed through the presentation of a significant selection of works executed between 1953 and 2005, including drawings, different types of plastic works (sculptures, matrices and traces), projects for gardens and floor mosaics, photographs of architectural works and actions performed in botanical gardens, photomontages, poetic texts and other documents.

The volume and the exhibition revolve around the central theme of the tree, probed in their different theoretical and aesthetic meanings, such as the “patriarch tree” and the Tree of Life. It opens with drawings of tortured olive trees, an exemplary arboreal model that opens up to the theme of the series of Martìri of the late ’50s and early ’60s, persists underneath the surface in the series of Racconti sulla terra of 1965, linked to the logic of the fragment of clear phytomorphic inspiration, and ends emblematically with the works on paper in the L’uomo e l’albero series in recent years. In the course of his creative activity, Somaini has reflected on the relationship between sculpture, architecture and the urban context, leading to the volume co-authored with Enrico Crispolti, Urgenza nella città of 1972, which includes insights into the conflict between the natural environment and the modern metropolis.