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A Tribute to Meret Oppenheim Special Exhibition

A Tribute to Meret Oppenheim

Special Exhibition, from a private collection

 

Opening: Thursday, October 27, 2022 at 6PM

At the opening will be present

Lisa Wenger, granddaughter of Ms. Oppenheim and

curator of the historical archive and editor of Meret Oppenheim’s diary, My Album,

and the curator, Italian art historian Martina Corgnati.

 

Registration required

***

On display from October 28 to November 25, 2022

Monday through Friday 10AM to 4PM (free entrance)

 

A Tribute to Meret Oppenheim is organized in conjunction with the major retrospective of the Swiss-German artist at the MoMA, Meret Oppenheim: My Exhibition, curated by art historian Martina Corgnati, author of a monumental biography of the artist (Meret Oppenheim. Afferrare la vita per la coda. Levi, Milan, 2014), and thanks to renowned Italian art collector Carmela Sanguedolce, of the Fondazione Sanguedolce, from where the paintings are exceptionally on loan to the Italian Cultural Institute in New York.

These Oppenheim’s masterpieces embody the early stages of hers research (Berlin, 1913 – Basel, 1985): Stehendes Mädchen; Rücken (Girl Standing, Back Turned), a very rare ink drawing on paper from 1932; Schon Lange Nicht Mehr da (For a Long Time No Longer There), an oil painting from 1943; and Frau in Gefaltige Gewande (Lady in a Folded Dress), a mixed-media painting from 1944. The latter has rarely been exhibited, most likely only immediately after World War II in Basel, and in 2021 at the Kunstmuseum in Solothurn, (CH).

Girl Standing, a synthetic and clean composition, dates to the time when the very young artist had recently arrived in Paris. She frequented compatriot Alberto Giacometti and approached the Surrealist Movement, which she would fully embrace in 1933, participating in the group’s exhibitions and creating some of the most representative objects of the movement, including Breakfast in Fur, acquired by Alfred Barr Jr. for MoMA and exhibited there.
A surrealist, sensual and metamorphic air also characterizes the still-life Schon Lange Nicht Mehr Da, painted in Switzerland during WWII, an extremely difficult phase on a historical and personal level: at the time, Oppenheim was stateless and a refugee, experiencing feeling of isolation, worry and depression. Her work, however, like some other paintings of this war period, is characterized by an almost romantic and sometimes fairytale-like inspiration, which at first glance reveals the power and originality of the artist’s talent.
Lastly, Lady in a Folded Dress shows an unusual perspective angle that accentuates the architecture of the female body and creates a game of abstraction and figuration, a fully Surrealist technique. Meret Oppenheim always had a penchant for fashion, clothes, dresses and above all masks, which is apparent through her work, while also conveying suggestions and artistic values ​​in a very personal way.

 

The collection of Carmela Sanguedolce, a Calabrian entrepreneur and collector based in Crotone, is one of the most important in Italy, dedicated to the artistic creation of women and the vision of artists on the female world. It includes about four hundred photographic, pictorial, and plastic works, created over the course of the twentieth century until today, by protagonists of the international art scene such as Leonor Fini, Antonietta Raphael Mafai, and Lisette Model, and contemporary artists including Ana Mendieta, Roni Horn, Kiki Smith, and Monica Bonvicini. Carmela Sanguedolce’s interest in Meret Oppenheim stems from the recognition of the immense importance of the artist, not only for her contributions to the Surrealist movement, but for her theoretical interpretations on the role of women in society, psychoanalysis, and culture in general.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a theatrical interpretation by the curator Martina Corgnati together with psychoanalyst and psychotherapist Giovanni Castaldi (in Italian, on October 28 at 6PM at the Italian Cultural Institute), who respectively take the roles of the artist and the renowned psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, whom Oppenheim had met in 1935.
The conversation reflects an in-depth knowledge of the life and personality of Meret Oppenheim developed by Martina Cognati during the research for the monumental biography of the artist. This is how the interests and experiences that contribute to Oppenheim’s personality will come to light: art, friendships, loves and desires, but also the frustrations and difficulties of a woman who has made her autonomy and intellectual independence not a goal, but the premise for every action and creation.

Reservation no longer available

  • Organized by: IIC-NY