exhibition invitation

Art Club #38 Guglielmo Castelli

01.03 - 19.05.2024

I Believe in The Nights, 2021 © Courtesy of the Artist, Mendes Wood DM and Rodeo London / Piraeus

Artist
Guglielmo Castelli

Curator
Pier Paolo Pancotto

Since its creation in 2016, the Art Club series has brought works by international contemporary artists into dialogue with the centuries-old heritage of the Académie de France in Rome. Taking the form of visual and plastic interventions scattered throughout the strolling areas of the Villa Medici (loggias, gardens, salons), this series renews the experience of visiting a place where epochs intermingle and unexpected connections arise.

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, he develops a universe where human and animal figures, landscape fragments, natural elements and scenes of everyday life mingle. Through his figurative painting, with its magmatic flat tints and fluid subjects, he creates narratives in perpetual motion, almost cinematographic.

The setting for these stories is the gardens of Villa Medici: five works by Guglielmo Castelli are presented in the Atelier Balthus, the Studiolo de Ferdinand de’ Medici and the Gypsotheca. These include four oil on canvas works: 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). Cet ensemble d’œuvres propose aux visiteurs un voyage chromatique où, au fil de la déambulation, chaque pièce semble contenir une énigme à résoudre.

Guglielmo Castelli is represented by Mendes Wood DM and Rodeo London / Piraeus.

Press release Guglielmo CastelliFile pdf - 726.44 Ko

Guglielmo Castelli

Guglielmo Castelli, born in 1987, lives and works in Turin. 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); Quadriennale, Rome (2020).

Pier Paolo Pancotto

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 Galleria nazionale d’arte in Tirana, the Lateral Art Space in Cluj, 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.