Reggio Emilia – From the San Lazzaro Archives, from the Museum of the History of Psychiatry of Reggio Emilia, what was once the “Asylum” of the city, the unpublished creations made by the former patients come out for the first time to show themselves to the public in an original exhibition dedicated to restless art.
They will be part of the over 140 works through which the great interpreters of the brush, from the twentieth century to today, have wanted to reveal the creative urgency and vitality of the languages ​​of art, necessary to explore the infinite faces and expressions of human identity.
From November 18th to March 12th masters like Paul Klee, Max ErnstAlberto Giacometti, Jean DubuffetAntonio Ligabue, Pietro Ghizzardi, Cesare Zavattini, Maria Lai, Alighiero BoettiEmilio Isgrò will investigate as never before done in an exhibition, “Restless Art”, exploring the theme of a restless identity that questions our time, through paintings, sculptures, graphics, drawings.

Werner Neuhaus, The painter friend Albert Müller, 1925, Oil on canvas, 76 x 128 cm, Museum of Art of Italian Switzerland, Lugano. Canton Ticino Collection

The path, curated by Giorgio Bedoni, Johann Feilacher and Claudio Spadoni, will give expression to the creative impulse of the artists who created unique works that surprise, amaze and still involve the visitor today. There are works from excluded worlds, today considered a precious and necessary archive of the imagination, the languages ​​of Art brut and those of Paul Klee, Max Ernst, of Surrealism.

If “restless art” is considered the daughter of personal and collective events, of research, of that expressive urgency of the artist who returns his feverish activity to the public, the thematic rooms of the exhibition are preparing to become the casket of a dialogue that he compares authors and works in a path that delves into the burning vitality of the artist, in his restless search for identity.

Antonio Ligabue, Self-portrait with tower, 1948, Oil on hardboard, 36 x 52 cm, Private collection

“Art must communicate, send messages using strong, barbaric, violent, vandalic expressions. Art scratches and disturbs, it is screeching, imperfection and invention. This is why we must oppose the rationalism that wants to invade territories that do not belong to it, the territories of the imaginary ”.
This is how the Danish painter Asger Jorn thought, seeing in art a seismograph sensitive to uncertain boundaries, capable of asking questions about the nature of man, about collective dreams and desires.

The exhibition ready to land in Reggio Emilia – promoted by Fondazione Palazzo Magnani together with the Municipality and the Ausl of Reggio Emilia – will be the culminating moment of Restless Identitythe agenda of events, exhibitions and performances promoted by various cultural institutions in the area in order to collect questions and show visions on the infinite nuances of identity.

Keith Haring, Untitled, 11/06/1984, Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, Private collection