Academies of Fine Arts Research Papers (original) (raw)

mostra a cura di Gerardo de Simone, Luciano Massari Carrara: Accademia di Belle Arti, Museo Carmi, Palazzo Binelli, Palazzo Cucchiari date: 9 luglio-10 ottobre 2021 orari: Mar-Dom 9.30-12.30, 16-20 (Carmi 17-20) Giovanni Antonio... more

mostra a cura di Gerardo de Simone, Luciano Massari
Carrara: Accademia di Belle Arti, Museo Carmi, Palazzo Binelli, Palazzo Cucchiari
date: 9 luglio-10 ottobre 2021
orari: Mar-Dom 9.30-12.30, 16-20 (Carmi 17-20)

Giovanni Antonio Cybei and His Time: an eminent sculptor at the European courts and Priamary Director of the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts.

Exhibition curated by Gerardo de Simone and Luciano Massari.

Carrara 9th July – 10th October 2021

Carrara Academy of Fine Arts, CARMI Museum; Palazzo Binelli, Palazzo Cucchiari

The exhibition – Giovanni Antonio Cybei and His Time: an eminent sculptor at the European courts and Primary Director of the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts – opens on 9th July 2021.

The exhibition is located in four different venues in Carrara – Carrara Academy of Fine Arts, CARMI, Palazzo Binelli, Palazzo Cucchiari – and represents the principal event to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the foundation of the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts (1769 – 2019). It is promoted and organized by the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts, in collaboration with Comune di Carrara, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Carrara, Fondazione Giorgio Conti, with the patronage of the Ministero della Cultura, Ministero dell’Interno, Regione Toscana, Provincia di Massa Carrara, Touring Club Italiano, and with the contribution of the Associazione Amici dell’Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara and the Carrara Branch of the Dickens Fellowship and of Mondopi Srl.

The exhibition intends to commemorate the first Director of the Academy: the great, though neglected sculptor from Carrara, Giovanni Antonio Cybei (1706-1784), who worked for the most illustrious Italian and European royal houses.

The event has been conceived and curated by Gerardo de Simone, art historian and professor at the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts, and by Luciano Massari, the present Director of the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts. The exhibition is aimed at outlining a detailed portrait of Giovanni Antonio Cybei in order to fill a gap in the history of sculpture between Baroque and Neoclassicism. Among the few exhibitions dedicated to eighteenth-century sculpture before Canova, this one aspires to represent a worthy exception and to set itself as a model for a renewed interest in and promotion of lesser-known artists, contexts, ages and cultures previously unfairly ignored.

The Advisory Board of the exhibition includes the most distinguished international researchers specializing in eighteenth-century sculpture: Sergey Androsov, Andrea Bacchi, Liliana Barroero, Marco Ciampolini, Francesco Freddolini, Andrea Fusani, Volker Krahn, Daniele Sanguineti, Cinzia Maria Sicca, Alison Yarrington.

The exhibition shows the entire span of Cybei’s activity since his apprenticeship at the Baratta’s studio, located in the Carrara quarter of Baluardo, to the last fifteen years of his life when he was appointed director of the new-born Academy of Fine Arts. More than one hundred works (from famous state museums and private collections), including marble statues, plaster and terracotta casts, drawings, prints, volumes and paintings are displayed. In addition to these, lost or immovable works are shown by visual and written means.

The exhibition, mounted by the architects Giuseppe Cannilla and Alberto Giuliani, is located in four appealing historical buildings forming a touring exhibition in the town. The chosen venues are the halls of the CARMI Museum (Museo Carrara e Michelangelo at Villa Fabbricotti), Palazzo Binelli, the seat of Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Carrara, Palazzo Cucchiari, the headquarters of Fondazione Giorgio Conti, and a section of Palazzo Cybo Malaspina, location of the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts.

The exhibition is organized in the following venues:

—CARMI Museum: it shows the Baratta’s studio, with masterpieces by Giovanni and his brother Pietro, and the religious and monumental works by Cybei, including the Virgin Immaculate from the City Hospital of Carrara, the St. John the Baptist from the Baptistry in Volterra and the cast for the Fountain of the Putti in Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa;

—Palazzo Binelli: the exhibition focuses on portrait, an art form Cybei’s mastery was famous for, in particular busts portraying distinguished aristocrats, politicians and scholars (Francesco Del Testa Del Tignoso, Bernardo Tanucci, Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Carlo Sigonio). Finally, a gallery is dedicated to the Duchess Maria Teresa Cybo Malaspina, meritorious founder of the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts;

—Palazzo Cucchiari: one gallery is dedicated to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Pietro Leopoldo from Lorena, representative of enlightened despotism; another is dedicated to the colossal Monumento equestre del duca Francesco III d’Este in Modena, erected by Cybei in 1774 and destroyed during the revolutionary riots: its preparatory moulds, views, maps, documents and its only surviving fragment are shown here.

—Carrara Academy of Fine Arts: a lecture hall features documents, books and drawings on the first activity of the Academy (including the chirograph deed, volumes, engravings, plasters and documents on Cybei as Director and Professor of Sculpture) and on the Carrara territory, with the famous views of the marble quarries by Saverio Salvioni and two magnificent bird’s-eye view maps of the Apuan coastline, one of which drawn by Filippo del Medico, Supervisor of the School of Architecture in Cybei’s time and designer of the Palazzo Rosso which was commissioned as the seat of the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts and destined to host the rich plaster casts gallery of the university in future years.

Exquisite works by contemporary sculptures and painters are displayed to enable a meaningful comparison with Cybei’s works. (Artists include Jean-Baptiste Boudard, Michelangelo Borghi, Agostino Cornacchini, Domenico Andrea Pelliccia, Francesco Maria Schiaffino, Innocenzo Spinazzi, Pietro Stagi, Corrado Giaquinto, Guido Pignatta, Antonio Consetti, Giuseppe Maria Soli and Domenico De Angelis).

The final part of the touring exhibition includes the visit to Cybei’s works in the Carrara Cathedral, where he served as a chaplain, (the “Lady of Ransom” altar, the Virgin of the Rosary, a polychrome papier-mâché statue and his gravestone), to the mythological bas-reliefs placed in the hall of Palazzo Del Medico Staffetti, and to two works recently attributed to Cybei: the statues of San Francesco and San Bernardino da Siena, located in the Church of San Francesco in Carrara.

Finally, we are grateful for the contribution that the students attending the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts have made to the organization of the event and their important role as guides and assistants in the galleries, and in welcoming the visitors in compliance with the restrictions due to the pandemic.

Exhibition Press Office: Monica Zanfini
Mobile phone: 338 8060156
e-mail address: monicazanfini@gmail.com