After the major exhibitions by Jan Fabre, Giuseppe Penone, Antony Gormley, and Eliseo Mattiacci, Forte Belvedere is once again devoted to the work of a single artist in its entirety, from the ramparts overlooking Florence to the interior of the Renaissance Palazzina. On June 24, 2023, the Forte Belvedere hosts MELMA, an original exhibition by Nico Vascellari curated by Sergio Risaliti, director of the Museo Novecento, promoted by the City of Florence and organized by MUS.E. This is the first stage of a large-scale project by the artist around the city of Florence. The exhibition is the first stage of a great year-long project that the artist has conceived for the city of Florence and that will involve some of its most emblematic places: Piazza Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio and Museo Novecento. An ambitious project and a special occasion that arrives twenty years after the artist’s first exhibition, held in Florence on 25 June 2003.

This is the first time that Forte Belvedere, in its indoor and outdoor spaces, presents an Italian artist of Vascellari’s generation with such an ambitious and unique exhibition project in terms of temporal and spatial extension: an opportunity to shed new light on and support this generation of Italian artists and to share with the general public their view of contemporaneity.

After the major exhibitions by Jan Fabre, Giuseppe Penone, Antony Gormley, and Eliseo Mattiacci, Forte Belvedere is once again devoted to the work of a single artist in its entirety, from the ramparts overlooking Florence to the interior of the Renaissance Palazzina. On June 24, 2023, the Forte Belvedere hosts MELMA, an original exhibition by Nico Vascellari curated by Sergio Risaliti, director of the Museo Novecento, promoted by the City of Florence and organized by MUS.E. This is the first stage of a large-scale project by the artist around the city of Florence. The exhibition is the first stage of a great year-long project that the artist has conceived for the city of Florence and that will involve some of its most emblematic places: Piazza Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio and Museo Novecento. An ambitious project and a special occasion that arrives twenty years after the artist’s first exhibition, held in Florence on 25 June 2003.

This is the first time that Forte Belvedere, in its indoor and outdoor spaces, presents an Italian artist of Vascellari’s generation with such an ambitious and unique exhibition project in terms of temporal and spatial extension: an opportunity to shed new light on and support this generation of Italian artists and to share with the general public their view of contemporaneity.

The second stage of the year-long project will be inaugurated in October with various interventions in some of the most prestigious sites of the city’s historical-artistic heritage. Piazza della Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio and the Museo Novecento will host a series of works, including a new installation for the Arengario, a site-specific performance conceived by the artist for the Salone dei Cinquecento, and a series of works in the former Leopoldine building, taking into account the peculiar relationship between the Renaissance and the contemporary, between the public space of the piazza and the political venue par excellence represented by the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio.

In Piazza della Signoria, contemporary art returns to the fore after the interventions of Jeff Koons, Jan Fabre, Urs Fischer and Francesco Vezzoli in past years. Nico Vascellari will realise a site-specific installation conceived for the Arengario of Palazzo Vecchio: a poetic and delicate action at the same time, inspired as much by Renaissance images – such as those of Botticelli – as by the verses of Poliziano and Pasolini. The installation will be inaugurated on 3 October 2023. On the same day, Vascellari will present a performance conceived for the Salone dei Cinquecento that reflects on the conventions and codes of non-verbal communication.

Finally, at the Museo Novecento, a selection of videos made by the artist in recent years will be presented.

Presumption is our natural and original disease. Of all creatures man is the most fragile and the most subject to calamity; at the same time he is the proudest. He feels and sees himself situated here, among the slime and dung of the world, bound and nailed to the worst, deadest and most stagnant part of the universe, at the last level of creation, the farthest from the vault of heaven, with the animals of the worst condition; and he goes with his imagination to plant himself above the circle of the moon; to put the sky under his own feet.

Michel De Montaigne, Essays, 1580

A special thank you to Cristina Fogazzi who helped to make admission to the exhibition free of charge for all visitors with her generous support.

NICO VASCELLARI

One of the most interesting authors on the Italian and international art scene, Nico Vascellari (b. 1976, Vittorio Veneto) has been pursuing a research that addresses, since the beginning, different practices, from performance to sculpture, from installation to drawing, from video to sound exploration. Through an anthropological approach and gaze, his works analyze the relationship between man and nature, interweaving the personal and collective dimensions. References to the archaic world, rituals and folklore are mixed with underground aesthetics becoming the stylistic signature of a very defined and unique aesthetic language.

In 2005 he founded in Vittorio Veneto (Treviso) Codalunga, an evolving project born in the artist’s studio that has spread throughout Italy and abroad, hosting exhibitions, performances and experimental projects. Artists such as Charlemagne Palestine, Jimmy Durham, Enzo Cucchi, William Basinski, Black Dice, Arto Lindsay, Prurient, Ghedalia Tazartes, John Duncan, Banks Violette, Ari Marcopoulos, Mat Brinkman, and Diego Perrone have taken part in the project.

Solo exhibitions include: Pino Pascali Foundation, Polignano a Mare (2022); Nicola Del Roscio Foundation, Rome (2021); MAXXI, Rome (2018); Palais De Tokyo, Paris (2017); Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2016); Academy of France – Villa Medici, Rome (2016); Estorick Collection, London (2016); National Gallery of Arts, Tirana (2015); Museion, Bolzano (2010); MAN Museum, Nuoro (2007); Skuc, Lubljana (2006); Viafarini, Milan (2006).

He has participated in national and international events: Mercosul Biennale (2022); October Salon, Belgrade (2021); Lyon Biennale (2019); 12th Architecture Biennale, Venice (2010); 15th Quadriennale, Rome (2008); Manifesta 7 (2008); 52nd Art Biennale, Venice (2007).

Among the major institutions in which his work has been included: Museo del Novecento, Milan; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Riga Art Space, Riga; La Maison Rouge, Paris; MAK, Vienna; Kunsthaus, Graz; SongEun Art Space, Seoul; ZKM, Karlsruhe; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Espace de l’Art Concrete, Mouans-Sartoux; Palazzo Reale, Milan; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; CSW, Warsaw; PinchukArtCentre, Kiev; Le Magasin, Grenoble; Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire; EACC, Castelló; MART, Rovereto; Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; MAMbo, Bologna. His work is part of the following permanent collections: Artothèque, Villeurbanne; Banca d’Italia, Rome; Deutsche Bank, Milan; Fondazione Triennale, Milan; Julia Stoschek Foundation; Lewben Art Foundation, Vilnius; Macro – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma; MAXXI | Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo Roma; MUSAC – Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Leon; Museion, Bolzano; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

Awards and honors include: Premio Pino Pascali, 2022; Premio Acacia, 2010; Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome 2007-2008; Premio della Giovane Arte Italiana 2006-2007; Premio New York, 2006; Premio Internazionale Della Performance, Dro, 2005.