Electa

From 6 October 2022 to 22 January 2023 the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa presents the grand exhibition “Rubens in Genoa” dedicated to Pietro Paolo Rubens (1577–1640) and his relationship with the city. The exhibition was produced by the City of Genoa with the Palazzo Ducale Cultural Foundation and our publishing house, Electa, and thanks to the support and participation of the sole sponsor, Rimorchiatori Riuniti S.p.A.

The curator is Nils Büttner, professor at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart as well as Chairman of the Centrum Rubenianum in Antwerp, and Anna Orlando, a Genoese independent scholar and co-curator of the exhibition “The Age of Rubens” held at the Palazzo Ducale in 2004.

Sixteen sections of the exhibition are set up in the rooms of the Sale dell’Appartamento of the Palazzo Ducale on the main floor of the building. Paintings, drawings, tapestries, furnishings, precious accessories and antique books are also exhibited together. There are over a hundred works, demonstrating the greatness of an artistic capital visited by one of the greatest artists of all time. It’s a selection that affirms the name of Superba that was given to Genoa, where Rubens stayed several times between 1600 and 1607. It’s also a selection that allows us to retrace and, in many cases, to reconstruct the relationship with the Genoese patrician, one which continued even after the master’s return to Antwerp.

Thirty works attributed to the Rubensian oeuvre: eighteen autograph works, together with paintings that definitely left the painter’s workshop under his supervision and with direct work by him, in addition to two priceless accounts of lost works known through subsequent works. It’s a significant collection, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Genoa — a city that still houses works by Rubens in churches, museums and private collections to this day — since the eighteenth century. In addition, an extraordinary selection of 80 works rounds out the story of the cultural and artistic context of the Ligurian city in its heyday. During his trip to Italy (1600–1608), Rubens definitely saw and studied Tintoretto and Luca Cambiaso. During his stay, and specifically in Genoa, he met Sofonisba Anguissola, Giovanni Battista Paggi and Bernardo Castello; and collaborated with Jan Wildens and Frans Snyders. All these artists are exhibited.

Fifteen never before exhibited Rubensian works appear in Genoa and ten for the first time in Italy. Two examples of the latter. The first, a self-portrait from 1604–1605, from a private collection. Recently rediscovered, it is an oil study in preparation for a self-portrait that Rubens included in a now lost Mantuan altarpiece. The second, Saint Sebastian Healed by Angels, circa 1615, from a private collection, is now traced to the commission by the famous condottiero, Ambrogio Spinola, thanks to a recent and important documentary discovery. Never exhibited fully, The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother (with a figure from an underlying composition), circa 1612–1616. This painting, from a private collection, depicts the risen Christ standing in front of two kneeling women. Both female figures represent the Mother of Jesus. A recent X-ray revealed the presence of a second female image beneath the painting’s surface, which is compositionally similar, but iconographically different. Both figures are now visible. At this event the studies and comparisons with the well-known Rubensian iconography will be exhibited. Among the new additions are two splendid portraits: Violante Maria Spinola Serra, circa 1607, from Buscot Park (Oxfordshire-The Faringdon Trust) and Geronima Spinola with her granddaughter Maria Giovanna Serra, circa 1605–1606, from Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie. These absolute masterpieces of European Baroque portraiture are both exhibited for the first time with their identities rediscovered.

Museums in Italy and abroad, as well as private collectors, have granted special loans in recognition of a project based on long years of studies and scientific research by the curators, and motivated by the support of a prestigious international honorary scientific committee, composed of the top experts in the field. It’s not only thanks to the research to prepare the exhibition, but also due to the rediscovery of a painting by Rubens that had been lost for two centuries, and which was definitely present in Genoa in the seventeenth century. At this event it is submitted to the scrutiny of international scholars who have never seen it before to prove its attribution. The work itself is a study for the altarpiece, The Miracles of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, still in the Chiesa del Gesù church in Genoa.

These and many other new additions are presented to the public in an exhibition on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the publication of the book, Palazzi di Genova, by Pietro Paolo Rubens, printed in Antwerp in 1622. It is an anniversary celebrated in the first room, where two original copies are exhibited, including a rare copy of the first edition, without subsequent additions.

Three books have been published by Electa on the occasion of the exhibition, curated by Anna Orlando: the brochure, also curated by Nils Büttner, presents all the new additions that have come about due to the new research and important updates that resulted from preparing the exhibition; the guide to the exhibition, an easy tool to follow the guided tour; the guide, In Genoa with Rubens, that accompanies the Rubensian tour to discover the masterpieces in the Genoese palaces and in the churches that Rubens definitely visited. For the occasion, Abscondita has published Palazzi di Genova, edited by Anna Orlando. The book contains tables, plans and sections of the buildings selected by Rubens. There’s abundant material to account for not only the complexity, but also the features and comforts of Genoese homes.

The Palazzo Ducale exhibition event has enabled a great project to be created: “Genova per Rubens. A Network“, imagined and curated by Anna Orlando. Indeed, it’s the most important cultural network ever initiated in Genoa centring on a single artist. More than sixty public and private companies are involved in this project dedicated to Rubens and his special relationship with the city. It is an extensive network of collaborations that has made it possible to create introductory talks, cultural events, special openings, side events and further exhibition projects.

“Rubens in Genoa” will be open until 22 January 2023. For information and tickets: palazzoducale.genova.it and www.ticketone.it.

The first retrospective in Italy dedicated to Max Ernst (1891–1976), the German – later American and French – painter, sculptor, poet and art theorist, opens in Milan on 4 October 2022. The exhibition, promoted and produced by the City of Milan – Culture and by Palazzo Reale with Electa, in collaboration with Madeinart, is curated by Martina Mazzotta and Jürgen Pech.

There are over 400 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, collages, photographs, jewellery and illustrated books from museums, foundations and private collections, in Italy and abroad. These include the GAM in Turin, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Museum of Ca’ Pesaro in Venice, the Tate Gallery in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Cantini Museum in Marseille, the State Museums and the Arp Foundation in Berlin, the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid.

The long period of study and research carried out by the curators has made it possible to include among the loans about eighty paintings, works and documents that had not been exhibited to the public for several decades. 

The breadth of themes and experiments in Ernst’s work spans over seventy years of 20th century history, between Europe and the United States, constantly eluding any definition. Pictor doctus, profound connoisseur and visionary interpreter of the history of art, philosophy, science and alchemy, Max Ernst is presented through this project as a humanist in the neo-Renaissance sense of the word. If André Chastel claimed to find in Ernst a sort of “reincarnation of those Rhenish authors of Bosch-type devilishness”, Marcel Duchamp found “a comprehensive inventory of the different eras of Surrealism”.

On the main floor of the Palazzo Reale visitors can immerse themselves in a fascinating tour that traces the artist’s adventurous creative path, marked by the great historical events of the twentieth century and filled with great loves, as well as illustrious friendships. The tour recounts events from Ernst’s life, grouping them into 4 main periods, in turn divided into 9 themed rooms that reveal interdisciplinary approaches to his art.

It’s a large, idealised library, that of the artist’s, composed of illustrated books, study manuals, photographs, objects and documents, winding through the entire tour of the exhibition, inviting visitors to engage in games to find the references and similarities between the sources of inspiration and the works themselves.

Like a great cabinet of curiosities, and analogous to Max Ernst’s universe, the exhibition and the companion book challenge visitors to discover fascinating games of perception that are at times marvellous, others astonishing, where logic and formal harmony are combined with unfathomable mysteries, where works, techniques and constellations of symbols lead us beyond painting.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a brochure published by Electa, a guide and a new edition, also by Electa, of two fundamental works by Paola Dècina Lombardi on the surrealist movement: Surrealism 1919–1969. Rebellion and Imagination and Women, Freedom, Love. A Surrealism Anthology.

“Max Ernst” will be open from 4/10/2022 until 26/02/2023. For information and tickets: www.maxernstmilano.it, www.electa.it and www.palazzorealemilano.it

The exhibition devoted to Fortunato Depero (Fondo 1892 – Rovereto 1960), an ingenious creator of theorized futurist aesthetics in the Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe manifesto signed with Giacomo Balla, in 1915, opened to the public on September 7 2022, at Mantua’s Palazzo della Ragione contemporaneously with the Festival of Literature. The exhibition Depero’s automatic acrobatic brings about 80 important masterpieces of the early 1900s (1917-1938) to Mantua for the first time and will remain open to the public until February 26 2023.

The exhibition was designed exclusively for the spaces of the Palazzo della Ragione by Electa, in cooperation with the Mart, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto. The curation is handled by Nicoletta Boschiero, manager of Depero’s Futurist Art House.

In the course of his long artistic experience, Depero developed a complete art form, which included painting, theatre, scenic design, applied arts, publishing and advertising and which made him become one of the protagonists of the futurist movement. The collection accompanies visitors on a journey aimed to reveal such various creative spheres by recalling the three geographical areas that affected his artistic path.

One of the most creative seasons, which reached its ultimate peak between 1916 and 1918 and which is linked to the theatrical adventure experienced with his Swiss friend, Gilbert Clavel, starts with Capri through a series of drawings that belonged to Clavel himself. An important masterpiece, such as the Ballerina Mechanics (1917) and some beautiful ink drawings devoted to the novel Gothic Institute for suicides, or prelude to the birth of the robot in the theatrical show Flexible Dances, are also exhibited.

 In 1919, after the war, it was in Rovereto that Depero gave life to his greatest dream, that of opening an art house specialised in the fields of adversing graphics, furniture and applied arts, and, in particular, in that of the cloth inlays that became very successful in Paris, in 1925, at the international Exhibition of modern decorative and industrial arts, which was “open to all industrials whose products were artistic by nature and clearly representative of a modern trend.”

Finally, in 1928, following the successes achieved at important national and international exhibitions, Depero and his wife, Rosetta, moved to New York, where they opened Depero’s Futurist House, a sort of American branch of their art house in Rovereto. Depero’s commitment to advertising became successful with the cooperation of leading brands, as he began to design numerous covers for American Printer, Vogue and Vanity Fair, in addition to the theatrical scenographies of New Babel. A last section of the exhibition is then devoted to the long-term cooperation with the Campari brand.

The exhibition’s catalogue will be published by Electa.

Triennale Milano & Electa are devoting a long-awaited exhibition to Saul Steinberg (1914-1999), curated by Italo Lupi and Marco Belpoliti in collaboration with Francesca Pellicciari. The exhibition is a tribute that Milan owes to this great artist, who dedicated so many of his sharply intelligent works to the city in which he resided during his formative years.

In October 2021 an initiative for young people will get under way in Mantua: a School of writing and publishing entitled Il libro dalla A alla Z (“The Book from A to Z”), promoted by the City of Mantua (Office for Culture and Tourism and Councillorship for Education, in partnership with Teresiana Library), conceived and implemented by publisher Electa in partnership with Fondazione Arnoldo e Alberto Mondadori, to mark the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Arnoldo Mondadori’s death.

With the goal of fuelling the love of reading and writing among the young people of generation Z, as part of the schools’ Life Skills and Orientation programme (PCTO or Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e per l’Orientamento), the project involves one year of training with lessons guiding and directing students toward various careers in publishing. Twenty lessons for 110 students in Mantua’s secondary schools will be held over 9 months (October 2021 through June 2022) at the Teresiana Library, presented by well-known professionals in the field such as Edoardo Brugnatelli, Lucia Tilde Ingrosso and Michela Tilli.

Before the school programme begins, two special lessons will be held, open to the general public, in Atrio degli Arcieri at the Palazzo Ducale on September 8 and 9, during Festivaletteratura: philosopher Ilaria Gaspari and sociolinguist Vera Gheno will invite the kids and everyone in the audience to “catch their wishes by the tail”, to paraphrase Picasso. A call for free exploration and expression of oneself and one’s thoughts, through the power of language.

In June 2022 the kids’ studies throughout the school year, from the city’s deepest historical and artistic roots to major issues of our times, will come together in the creation of a new Sentimental Guide to Mantua, featuring text, photographs and cover art by participants in the programme.

Mantua, a city with a great literary tradition, is also the place of origin of Arnoldo Mondadori (1889 – 1971), who passed away fifty years ago this year. The initiative also offers an opportunity to discuss and celebrate Mondadori’s publishing career: from his success in school textbooks to his experimentation with new editorial genres and formats. The heritage he left behind for the city will also be celebrated, such as the modern art collection featuring the paintings of Federico Zandomeneghi and Armando Spadini donated by the Mondadori family in the ‘70s and permanently displayed at the top floor of Palazzo Te since 1983.

Information on the events

An atlas of desires with Ilaria Gaspari

Wednesday, September 8, at 11:30 Mantua,
Mantua, Palazzo Ducale, Atrio degli Arcieri

Living comfortably in language: considerations about a universal right with Vera Gheno
Thursday, September 9, at 11:30
Mantua, Palazzo Ducale, Atrio degli Arcieri

Free admission, reservations required

Electa is pleased to present #puntoeacapo, a collection of short digital stories –for the moment “filmed” from home – by writers, curators, creatives, editors and those working with the publisher, all sharing their different perspectives and activities. They will talk about books, exhibitions and the languages of art, from publishing to architecture, passing via museum bookshops.

The #puntoeacapo social feature of stories and accounts continuesthe Art and illustrated publishing experience through the faces and voices of curators, museum directors, archaeologists, art critics, artists, architects and designers. Born during the “lockdown” weeks, #puntoeacapo starts with Electa pondering its journey as a publisher and its role flanking museums. As we mark 75 years in publishing, we have started thinking about the Electa of today and of the future with many questions and some constants (old and new).

The first series of videos responds to a desire to revisit the#patrimonioitalia and rethink our cultural identity and past by conducting a Grand Tour through books, exhibitions, memories and emotions as we look to the future.

Even today 120 million children around the world do not receive a basic education, and more than half of them are girls. Without the chance to study it is impossible to imagine a future, without adequate quality education there are no opportunities to build a better and more secure life.

The right to an education is even more at risk in countries like Ethiopia, where almost 30 million people live below the poverty line and 30.4% of children under the age of 5 suffer from malnutrition. Too many boys and girls (70%) are obliged to leave education after primary school in order to help their families by working in the fields and because of a lack of the right kind of support.

This is why, for Christmas, ActionAid together with Mondadori, Einaudi, Rizzoli, Piemme, Sperling&Kupfer, Mondadori Electa and Fabbri Editori have come together to face an important challenge: to guarantee the right to education for 1,800 boys and girls in the Raya Azebo of Ethiopia, one of the places in the world where the provision of primary education is most urgent, and an area that is frequently without access to drinking water and adequate sanitation.

“Going to school in Ethiopia and being able to complete studies with quality education is a right that is denied to too many children especially girls. To able to work alongside a partner like Mondadori is to receive the kind of fundamental support that will make it possible to realise the dreams of 1,800 children who have neither classrooms, nor books or materials. Thanks to the contribution of the publishing houses of the Group we will be able to build two new schools, provide electricity, drinking water and sanitation, support teacher training and build awareness in the local community of the importance of educating girls, in one of the poorest regions of the country,” declared Marco De Ponte, Secretary General of ActionAid.

The importance of an education worthy of the name – that is equal, inclusive and accessible to everyone – is an absolute priority for the Mondadori Group: indeed, it is part of a profound sense among the people who work in the company that it is a natural and fundamental element of our traditions and history as a company” declared Enrico Selva Coddè, Chief Executive of the Trade Area of Mondadori Books. “This initiative allows our publishing houses to go further and engage in a concrete and inclusive solidarity project that will benefit one of the areas of the world in which the need is most urgent. Being able to work alongside a partner like ActionAid is a guarantee for us of the seriousness of our joint commitment” concluded Enrico Selva Coddè.

The project

Most of the schools in the Raya Azebo district have wooden frames and mud walls. And due to the lack of separate toilet facilities for boys and girls, it is impossible for girls to go to school during their menstrual cycle. Such frequent absence from lessons consequently leads to poor results and even abandoning school altogether.

With the “Insieme per l’istruzione” (Together for Education) project, ActionAid and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group will create a safe school environment for 1,800 children, half of them girls, in the primary schools of the Barie Woyane and Hawulti communities. During 2020 two school buildings, each with four classrooms, a library and separate toilet facilities for girls, will be completed. Also teaching materials and classroom furniture will be provided, along with support for girls and initiatives to improve school governance, with the increased involvement of the local communities.

The progress of the project in Ethiopia can be followed on the web site: insiemeperlistruzione.it.

With this initiative, ActionAid and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group are committed to the shared support of the fourth of the Sustainable Objectives set by the United Nations for 2030.

ActionAid for schools

Over the last year we have ensured and improved access to free, safe and quality education for boys and girls in around 5,000 schools in 25 countries. We have also involved over 400,000 parents, teachers and students in activities aimed at preventing and combatting the early abandonment of school.

The Mondadori Group for education

We are a publishing house with over 100 years of history. Thanks to our strong links with authors and readers we are acutely aware of our responsibilities, also to civil society. There is no doubt that the right to quality education and information is an essential prerequisite for the development and growth of a country. Consequently, the active promotion, in Italy and around the world, of a culture that is accessible to all, is a central part of our mission and one of the principles of the Group’s sustainability policy.

What ActionAid does

ActionAid is an independent international organisation operating in Italy and in 44 other countries. It collaborates with more than 10,000 partners, alliances, NGOs and social movements to combat poverty and social injustice. For over 40 years ActionAid has been working alongside the poorest and most marginalised people and communities, supporting them in the knowledge that it is only through collective efforts in support of solidarity and justice that real social change can be generated. A fair and equal world for all: this is the vision that inspires ActionAid and provides its strength. In order to transform this vision of the world into concrete reality, ActionAid has adopted a specific mission for the next 10 years: to work for the promotion and adoption of democratic participation and to involve people and communities in the protection of their rights, and to collaborate, at a local, national and international level, for the realisation of change and the spread of social equality, improving the quality of democracy and consequently supporting those who live in situations of poverty and marginalisation.

From this month all new eBooks from the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group– Mondadori, Rizzoli, Einaudi, Piemme, Sperling & Kupfer e Mondadori Electa – will be published in the new ePub3 format.

The Mondadori Group is the first Italian publisher to adopt the most recent international standard for all new digital publications, confirming its commitment to the development of digital publishing and the innovations demanded by the market.

The updating project was completed after a detailed analysis of the new format aimed at further improving the reading experience to make it more inclusive. In fact, the technical specifications of ePub3 make it possible to produce eBook with improved accessibility and graphics.

The new format facilitates the publication of digital text with a higher level of accessibility thanks to more precise metadata, content marking and image description, giving the visually impaired a much wider range of books that can be used with adaptive technologies, such as special keyboards and voice-overs.

This is a continuation of the Mondadori Group’s commitment to extend access to reading for people with sight impairments, to which the company has always paid special attention, also through collaboration with institutions such as the Fondazione LIA and the Fondazione Paideia on ambitious inclusion projects, such as the catalogue of accessible Italian books (https://catalogo.fondazionelia.org) and the digital books in AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication ) project ILIBRIPERTUTTI (https://www.ilibripertutti.it).

Entirely retro-compatible with all reading devices and apps, the ePub3 format will also make it possible to more easily produce books with complex graphics and augmented features, such as multi-media, interactivity and animations.

The Mondadori Group is the market leader in trade books with a total market share of 25.7%. Since 2010 Group has published the majority of its editorial products also as eBooks, with a catalogue of around 20,000 titles.

In sort of triptych that includes the previous experiences at the Art Biennales of 2013 and 2015, the Holy See takes part for the first time this year in the Venice Architecture Biennale, through the creation of the Vatican Chapels Pavilion curated by Francesco Dal Co.

The project takes its cue from a precise model, the Woodland Chapel built in 1920 by the renowned architect Gunnar Asplund at the Woodland Cemetery in Stockholm, a work featured in an initial exhibition space, illustrated with original drawings of the project.

The theme of the chapel as a place of orientation, encounter, mediation and salutation – as Asplund put it – was suggested to ten architects who were invited to design and build ten chapels in a wooded area at one end of the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Therefore this will be a composite, distributed pavilion, visited in stages along an itinerary that is also a spiritual pilgrimage. The chapels created by the architects, thanks to the indispensable support of important contractors and contributors, will be arranged in “an utterly abstract natural setting, marked only by its presence on the lagoon, its openness to the water,” as Dal Co explains, emphasizing the unique, original character of the initiative that has granted the architects complete freedom to design “without any reference to commonly recognized canons.” Inside the chapels, the shared fulcrum and identifying, unifying feature is represented by the presence of the altar and the lectern.

The choice of the invited architects was based on the decision to focus on designers capable of applying different expressive languages, all strong characters from the standpoint of constructive experimentation, belonging to different generations and hailing from Europe, Australia, Japan, the United States and South America, in order to reflect the universal – indeed  “catholic” – nature of the Church.

The architects who have designed the ten chapels and the exhibition space of Vatican chapels are: Andrew Berman (USA), Francesco Cellini (Italy), Javier Corvalàn (Paraguay), Eva Prats and Ricardo Flores (Spain), Norman Foster (UK), Terunobu Fujimori (Japan), Sean Godsell (Australia), Carla Juaçaba (Brazil), Smiljan Radic (Chile), Eduardo Souto de Moura (Portugal), while Francesco Magnani and Traudy Pelzel are the designers of the pavilion that will contain the exhibition of the drawings of Gunnar Asplund for the “Skogskapellet,” the “Woodland Chapel” in Stockholm.

The opening of the Pavilion, with the presence of Cardinal Ravasi, will be on Friday 25 May in the gardens of the Island of San Giorgio in Venice. The Pavilion will remain open to the public from 26 May to 25 November 2018.

The catalogue edited by Francesco Dal Co, with essays by Gianfranco Ravasi, Francesco Dal Co and Elisabetta Molteni, published by Electaarchitettura, will be available from 23 May.