{"id":8420,"date":"2023-02-28T16:13:02","date_gmt":"2023-02-28T15:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/l-idea-di-nord-per-kirkeby-lars-von-trier\/"},"modified":"2024-03-13T11:18:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T10:18:28","slug":"the-idea-of-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/the-idea-of-north\/","title":{"rendered":"THE IDEA OF NORTH<br>PER KIRKEBY &#8211; LARS VON TRIER"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Curated by Rita Selvaggio<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8238\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8238\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8257\" src=\"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/38fca91f-3d53-13d5-3168-f4cd595dae3f.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/38fca91f-3d53-13d5-3168-f4cd595dae3f.png 1778w, https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/38fca91f-3d53-13d5-3168-f4cd595dae3f-300x136.png 300w, https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/38fca91f-3d53-13d5-3168-f4cd595dae3f-1024x465.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/38fca91f-3d53-13d5-3168-f4cd595dae3f-768x349.png 768w, https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/38fca91f-3d53-13d5-3168-f4cd595dae3f-1536x698.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/38fca91f-3d53-13d5-3168-f4cd595dae3f-360x164.png 360w, https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/38fca91f-3d53-13d5-3168-f4cd595dae3f-750x341.png 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1778px) 100vw, 1778px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-8238\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><br \/>Per Kirkeby-Lars von Trier, still da \u201cBreaking the Waves\u201d (Lars von Trier, 1996), Chapter IV<br \/>Courtesy Zentropa<\/p><\/div>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;5px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Casa Masaccio | Centro per l\u2019Arte Contemporanea is delighted to present <strong><i>THE IDEA OF NORTH: Per Kirkeby \u2013 Lars von Trier<\/i><\/strong>, which will open on 4 March at 6 pm (4 March-18 June 2023).<br \/>\nAfter <i>Jean-Marie Straub and Dani\u00e8le Huillet: Films and Their Sites<\/i> (2020) and <i>Chantal Akerman \u2013 ROOMS: On Keeping and Losing<\/i> (2022), <strong><i>THE IDEA OF NORTH<\/i><\/strong> is part of the programme ESPORRE IL CINEMA conceived and curated by Rita Selvaggio, a series of exhibitions devoted to the directors who have been awarded the Premio Marco Melani. For its 16th edition (2022) the prize has been assigned to the Danish director <strong>Lars von Trier<\/strong> for the relations his cinema establishes with history, the history of art, the epic and literature. Taking its title from Glenn Gould\u2019s celebrated radio broadcast in 1967, the route through the exhibition will consist, like the latter, of a journey through states of mind that will include as a counterpoint the work of <strong>Per<\/strong> <strong>Kirkeby <\/strong>(Copenhagen 1938-2018). In his native Denmark, Kirkeby is considered a sort of national treasure, an artist of exceptional talent whose intense and moody works are believed to express the spirit of the country. He has contributed to the creative vision of the following films by Lars von Trier:<\/p>\n<p><i>Breaking the Waves<\/i> (1996), <i>Dancer in the Dark (2000)<\/i>,<i>Antichrist<\/i> (2009).<\/p>\n<p>For <i>Breaking the Waves<\/i>, for example, he painted the intros to the eight chapters into which the novel-like structure of the film is divided, panoramas in the Romantic mould that rework photographs taken by Lars von Trier himself and enchanted and mournful long shots that draw on the work of artists like Turner, Constable, Friedrich and Munch.<\/p>\n<p>Kirkeby\u2019s practice and career spanned five decades, over which he produced a body of powerful and unique works: sculpture, architecture, film, poetry, art criticism, travel writing, sets for ballets and theatrical performances, costumes. But his first love had been the geology of the arctic regions, a discipline that informed much of his multifaceted production, along with nature in general.<\/p>\n<p>Journeys to the farthest latitudes, which he saw not just as existential adventures but also as linguistic devices, and painting were the constants of his life. From the twenty odd expeditions to Greenland (the last of them in 2011, at the age of 73, aboard a three-masted schooner) to his repeated missions of study in the Pacific, sailing between the islands of Polynesia or walking in the deserts of Australia, always carrying his sketchbook in an attempt to fix in watercolour not so much the landscape itself as impressions of it that would serve to reflect his moods.<\/p>\n<p>In the layout of the exhibition, the bronze models or <i>bozzetti<\/i> of his large and explorable sculptures, which the artist regarded as \u2018architectural studies\u2019 of forms, combine expressive and emotional possibilities and animate the polyphony of voices produced by Lars von Trier\u2019s images. Extrapolating the geological tissue from under the skin of reality, its material stratification reflecting the accumulation of time, they occupy the rooms of Casa Masaccio in an erratic expanse. The selection of Lars von Trier\u2019s images highlights the major themes of his cinema: religion, psychoanalysis, a dark, perverse and innocent femininity, constrained and liberated by a violent sexuality. Von Trier\u2019s women are pure, visionary and lone, unyielding protagonists of compelling stories whose visual impact makes them even more unforgettable.<\/p>\n<p>The whole of Lars Von Trier\u2019s work appears to be held together by an underlying artistic coherence of which what is often most striking is its pictorial intensity. The examples are multiple, from the Ophelia of <i>Melancholia<\/i> (2011), whose title is borrowed from an engraving made by Albrecht D\u00fcrer in 1514, to the image of Kirsten Dunst, star of the film, floating in a wedding dress that carries her off into a watery void, a citation of the pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais, to that of the woman lying on a rock in the same film, a clear reference to Giorgione. Or again, <i>The Barque of Dante<\/i> (1822), a painting by Eug\u00e8ne Delacroix representing the vessel with which Phlegyas ferried damned souls across the Styx, whose iconography is used in the form of a <i>tableau vivant<\/i> in the epilogue of <i>The House that<\/i> <i>Jack Built<\/i> (2018). Also cited in this film are some of William Blake\u2019s illustrations of Dante\u2019s <i>Inferno<\/i> and, in the \u2018epilogue-katabasis\u2019, the poet\u2019s description of the Malebolge orients the moment of passage through the eighth ditch in which the fraudulent are punished.<\/p>\n<p>Lars von Trier\u2019s cinema cites, reinterprets, absorbs. It is the result of an absolutely personal reworking that does not forget the models to which it makes reference.<\/p>\n<p>While still very young he had tackled the classics with <i>Medea<\/i> (1988), proposing a personal version of the myth. Based on a screenplay by Carl Theodor Dreyer that had never been made into a film, it is set in the cold and desolate wastes of Jutland, amidst misty and spectral landscapes, boundless expanses of wilderness and a series of marshes and bogs. In a hypothetic Nordic Middle Ages that retreats towards the polar night or the midnight aurora in the summer sky, Lars von Trier bestows a timeless dimension on the narration and Medea\u2019s savagery becomes an absolute and metaphysical, ancestral entity, almost a metaphor for nature and the earth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Per Kirkeby<\/strong> (Copenhagen 1938 &#8211; 2018) is one of Scandinavia\u2019s most important 20th century artists.\u00a0 An internationally celebrated painter, sculptor, filmmaker, and author, works by Kirkeby are found in many museum collections worldwide including Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Museum of Modern Art, New York, among many others.\u00a0 Important solo museum exhibitions include Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humleb\u00e6k; Museum Jorn, Silkeborg; the Beaux-Arts de Paris; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels; Tate Modern, London; IVAM Centre del Carme, Valencia; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Whitechapel Gallery, London; and Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lars von Trier<\/strong> Danish director born in 1956, he is co-founder of the Danish production company Zentropa e one of the founders of the Dogma 95 collective. His films have won prizes all over the world,including some of the major awards from the Cannes Film Festival: the Palme d&#8217;Or for \u201cDancer in the Dark\u201d and the Grand Jury Prize for \u201cBreaking the Waves\u201d as well as awards for two leading actresses, Charlotte Gainsbourg in \u201cAntichrist\u201d and Kirsten Dunst in \u201cMelancholia\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Initiative promoted by:<br \/>\nComune di San Giovanni Valdarno<br \/>\nCasa Masaccio | Centro per l\u2019arte contemporanea<\/p>\n<p>Realised:<br \/>\nunder the patronage of the Royal Danish Embassy \u2013 Rome<br \/>\nunder the patronage and with the contribution of the Ministry of Culture \u2013 Directorate General for Cinema and Audio-visuals<br \/>\nunder the patronage and with the contribution of the Danish Arts Foundation<br \/>\nwith the support of the Regione Toscana<\/p>\n<p>in collaboration with:<br \/>\nFreeze Frame Gallery<br \/>\nZentropa<br \/>\nMichael Werner Gallery, New York, London and Berlin.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to:<br \/>\nLars von Trier (ArtvonTrier)<br \/>\nJens-Otto Paludan (Freeze Frame Gallery)<br \/>\nIda Harder, Peter Aalb\u00e6k Jensen, L\u00e1rus Ren Gudbj\u00f6rnsson (Zentropa)<br \/>\nGordon VeneKlasen, Kadee Robbins, John McGill (Michael Werner Gallery)<\/p>\n<p>Entrance free of charge | Opening hours: weekdays 3-7 pm, Sundays and holidays 10-12 am\/3-7 pm[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8246\" src=\"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/parter-casamasaccio.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"980\" height=\"128\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/parter-casamasaccio.jpg 980w, https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/parter-casamasaccio-300x39.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/parter-casamasaccio-768x100.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/parter-casamasaccio-360x47.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/parter-casamasaccio-750x98.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px\" \/><\/center>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>4 March \u2013 18 June 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8257,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[63,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8420"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8421,"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8420\/revisions\/8421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casamasaccio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}