Curated by Desdemona Ventroni

Casa Masaccio | Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea pays homage to the art critic Lara-Vinca Masini (Florence, 1923–2021) with an exhibition addressed to the dialogue between contemporary arts in Tuscany. As can be inferred from the title, COMING SOON / GETTING BACK will retrieve and update the reflections brought about by Masini in the Arteoggi Firenze – USA / Artoday USA – Florence historical exhibition from 1986, held in San Giovanni Valdarno and other locations across Tuscany and later moved to the United States.

Thanks to a collaboration with the Centro Pecci in Prato, the leading museum of the Tuscan Network of Contemporary Art, COMING SOON / GETTING BACK falls into the framework of a rich programme of activities promoted to celebrate the centenary anniversary of Lara-Vinca Masini. La memoria del futuro. The exhibition will feature works by some of the artists selected by Masini in 1986 as representatives of what she defined an “international cultural and artistic koinè”. These works will be displayed next to testimonies and projects that highlight the connections between Masini’s investigations, her research and publications, and the events embracing contemporary art, architecture, and the urban fabric held in San Giovanni Valdarno over the past sixty years.

The new exhibition hosted in Casa Masaccio welcomes back some of the artists that were invited to San Giovanni Valdarno in 1986, bringing together Giuseppe Chiari’s musical improvisations and Mario Mariotti’s “visible music”, Maurizio Nannucci’s artistic publishing and the artisanal “non-design” promoted by Lapo Binazzi (UFO), Fabrizio Corneli’s dynamic sculpture and Alberto Moretti’s existentialist painting, Paolo Masi’s chromatic analysis, Renato Ranaldi’s “precarious” materials, Luciano Bartolini’s “suggestive labyrinths”.

And, then, works and archival records testifying to Ketty La Rocca’s poetics and art performance experience, to Joseph Beuys’ “social sculpture”, the designs of “provisional architecture” advanced by the Haus-Rucker-Co group, the architecture as a “medium of communication” promoted by Hans Hollein. Accompanying this blend of artistic languages and the new visions conceived for public spaces, including the main square, is Gianni Pettena’s provocative aesthetics and the collective installation “Panni”, after an urban project by Mario Mariotti (works by Giuseppe Chiari, Terry Fox, Riccardo Guarneri, Carlo Guaita, Paul Herberg, Lucia Marcucci, Fabio Mauri, Janet Mullarney, Andreas Neumann, Luciano Ori, Lucia Romualdi).

Among the artists present in the new exhibition, we will find some of the protagonists who were showcased at past events held in San Giovanni Valdarno or who collaborated with Lara-Vinca Masini at historical art events, including the 1978 Venice Art Biennale and the Florentine project Umanesimo, Disumanesimo nell’arte europea 1890/1980. The dialogue between the arts, which was at the heart of Masini’s philosophy, will turn the town of San Giovanni Valdarno, both inside the framework of Casa Masaccio and outside of it, into a container of ideas and proposals advanced by artists, architects, designers, performers.

We would like to thank:
Archivio Lara-Vinca Masini, Archivio Mario Mariottti, CID/Arti Visive and Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato
Raul Dominguez and Fondazione Alberto Moretti, Carmignano (Prato)
Frittelli arte contemporanea, Florence
Renato Ranaldi
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio, Prato

Desdemona Ventroni is an art historian and Ph.D. She is an expert in art archives and repositories, and gallery spaces. In 2015, for Casa Masaccio, she organized a symposium on the theme Il Premio Masaccio: storia e progetti (The Masaccio Awards: History and Projects) and, between 2016 and 2017, she curated the exhibitions Casa Masaccio: Altri racconti (Casa Masaccio: Other Tales) and Casa Masaccio Anthology e Geografie nel tempo (Casa Masaccio Anthology and Time Geographies). She also curated the Art on film programs in collaboration with Lo Schermo dell’arte, Festival di cinema e arte contemporanea in Florence. This year, she is invited to hold a public lecture (Saturday 10 February 2024 at 5:00 pm concomitantly with the vernissage of the exhibition) on the topic of Arteoggi/Artoday exhibit of 1986, Masini’s views as an art critic, and the dialogue between the arts in San Giovanni Valdarno.

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Partner museum of the Tuscan Network of Contemporary Art
Supported by the “Sistemi Museali 2023”