Exhibition | Guglielmo Castelli – Art Club #38
From 1 March to 19 May 2024
Curator : Pier Paolo Pancotto
With the support of Mendes Wood DM
The painting is on display in the historic bedroom of Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, accessible only on guided tours of Villa Medici.
Since 2016, the Art Club cycle has presented the work of international contemporary artists in the form of visual and artistic interventions in the historic spaces of Villa Medici such as its loggias, gardens, and the Gypsotheque. Integrated into the guided tour of Villa Medici, these interventions renew and enrich the experience of a place that is both contemporary and of historical heritage, conducive to unexpected artistic dialogues.
For the next event in the Art Club cycle, Villa Medici invites Turin-based painter Guglielmo Castelli. Drawing his inspiration from literature, theater, and art history, Guglielmo Castelli develops a world where human and animal figures, landscape fragments, natural elements, and scenes from everyday life mix and conflate. Through his figurative painting, with its magmatic flat tints and fluid subjects, he sets narratives into perpetual, practically cinematographic, motion.
The setting for these stories is the gardens of Villa Medici: five works by Guglielmo Castelli are on display in the Atelier Balthus, the Studiolo of Ferdinando de’ Medici, and the Gypsotheque (a former workshop now housing plaster casts of statues, busts, and reliefs). These include four oils on canvas: the diptych I Believe in the Nights (2021); Buon Vento (2023); Le Jardin des Refusés, and The Mutiny’s Space (2022), as well as a tapestry made from recycled plastic and natural threads, Dorofoco. Bonotto for a Collection (2020). This group of works takes visitors on a chromatic journey, with each piece holding a riddle to be solved.
Guglielmo Castelli is represented by Mendes Wood DM and Rodeo London / Piraeus.
The artist
Guglielmo Castelli, born in 1987, lives and works in Turin. His solo exhibitions include: Venice, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa (2024); Berlin, Künstlerhaus Bethanien (2018); and group shows: Diario notturno, L’Aquila, Maxxi (2023); Mutanti sotto un cielo che implode, Turin, OGR (2023); Italian Painting Today, Milan, Triennale (2023); A Lover’s Discourse, Aspen, Art Museum (2023); Espressioni con frazioni, Turin, Castello di Rivoli (2022); and the Quadriennale, Rome (2020).
The curator
Pier Paolo Pancotto has curated the Art Club exhibition program at Villa Medici since 2016. Previously, he curated the Fortezzuola exhibition cycle at the Museo Pietro Canonica in Rome in 2016-2018, as well as exhibition projects at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in London, the National Museum of Fine Arts in Tirana, Albania, the Lateral Art Space in Cluj, Romania, the Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes in Naples, the Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna in Rome, the Museo H. C. Andersen, Rome, Museo Carlo Bilotti, Rome, Nomas Foundation, Rome, Museo Correr and Museo da Palazzo Mocenigo, Venice and La Fondazione, Rome.
Photo credits:
Cover image :
Guglielmo Castelli, I Believe in The Nights, 2021 © Courtesy of the Artist, Mendes Wood DM and Rodeo London / Piraeus
Guglielmo Castelli, The mutiny’s space, 2022 © Courtesy of the Artist, Mendes Wood DM and Rodeo London / Piraeus
Guglielmo Castelli, Buon vento, 2023 © Courtesy of the Artist, Mendes Wood DM and Rodeo London / Piraeus
Portrait of Guglielmo Castelli : © Elina Belou
Portrait of Pier Paolo Pancotto : © Daniele Molajoli
Photos : © Daniele Molajoli