Etruscans of the 20th century
At the Mart Museum the first stage of an exhibition project in two cities
The Mart in Rovereto and the Luigi Rovati Foundation in Milan present two exhibitions curated by a single curatorial team on the fortunes that Etruscan culture had on the modern and contemporary.
Etruscans of the 20th century (literally “Etruschi del 20° secolo) tells how the Etruscan civilization has influenced, on several occasions, the visual culture of the short century: starting from the archaeological finds and the Etruscan tours, organized between the 19th and 20th centuries, to the Chimera of Mario Schifano, performed during a performance in Florence in 1985, on the occasion of the inauguration of the so-called year of the Etruscans.
The echo of sensational discoveries like that of the Apollo of Veio (from the 4th century B.C. the painted terracotta sculpture, almost two meters high, was found in 1916 and is now preserved at the Museo di Villa Giulia in Rome) led to the spread of numerous studies and publications and to the resumption of styles, forms, themes and materials. Archaic smiles, fantastic animals, life and death, the cult of the mysterious people bewitched the moderns, fascinated by the dense, synthetic, sincere, “primitive” style.
Today Mart and Luigi Rovati Fondation offer for the first time an overall vision of the vast and articulated phenomenon that was the rediscovery of Etruscan civilization in the last century, through a project in two different and complementary stages, from early December 2024 to early August 2025, curated by a single curatorial team.
More than 200 works on display at the Mart: a dialogue between great masterpieces of modern art and archaeological finds to which are added dozens of documents, books, photographs and magazines.
Curated by Lucia Mannini, Anna Mazzanti, Giulio Paolucci, Alessandra Tiddia.
