Palazzo Reale in Milan hosts an exhibition of great cultural and social significance which aims to underline and reaffirm, especially among the younger generations, the fundamental value of legality. From 3 December 2024 to 26 January 2025, SalvArti will be set up in the rooms of Palazzo Reale. From confiscations to public collections, an exhibition that returns to the public a series of contemporary works of art, including paintings, graphics and sculptures by artists such asi Giorgio de Chirico, Mario Sironi, Lucio Fontana, Massimo Campigli, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, Mario Schifano, Robert Rauschenberg, Christo and others, coming from confiscations made by the public authorities from organized crime. The exhibition is part of the Art for the culture of legality project, organized by the General Directorate of Museums of the Ministry of Culture, the National Agency for Assets Seized and Confiscated from Organized Crime (ANBSC), the Municipality of Milan and the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior.
The Milanese exhibition is the second stage of an itinerary that opened with an extraordinary preview, from 16 October to 21 November 2024 at the Hendrick Christian Andersen Museum in Rome, and which will close at the Palazzo della Cultura in Reggio Calabria, from 8 February to 27 April 2025. In addition to presenting a cultural heritage that has largely remained inaccessible to the community, the initiative highlights the role and commitment of the institutions involved in the long and virtuous process that was necessary to recover them – among these, the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage and the Guardia di Finanza – and to verify their authenticity and cultural interest.
On the occasion of the presentation in Milan, the metropolitan councilor of Reggio Calabria spoke, Filippo Quartucciodelegate for Culture who declared: “Pride and satisfaction for a project which highlights, even more, the commitment of the State in all its ramifications, against organized crime, and which rewards the work of local institutions for the treatment and the valorization of cultural heritage and works of art. ‘Save you’ is the perfect element it represents, the concrete institutional collaboration, and above all the commitment aimed at promoting a message of legality, which generates actions that have positive repercussions on our territories”. “It is the strong and deep-rooted concept according to which – he highlighted – the State team wins when the confiscated assets become, or rather return to, collective heritage, usable by all. If the institutions were not as attentive as they are today to this issue, we would certainly all be poorer. It is – he concluded – a concept which for us, from Reggio Calabria, the city in which we began this journey in 2016, represents a source of pride in being part of this project initiative”.
The exhibition itinerary
The over 80 works that make up the exhibition itinerary, ordered according to a chronological and thematic criterion, come from two different procedures. The first arose from two cross-investigations, carried out by the ROS of the Carabinieri and the Currency Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza, into a maxi-tax fraud linked to an international money laundering network. The second is the result of a confiscation of a person fully involved in the organized crime circuit and permanently engaged in illicit economic activities.
The exhibition allows us to retrace the developments of art from the first half of the twentieth century to the early 2000s, in particular the evolution of expressive languages and artistic currents of the time. Among these, we encounter the Novecento group with Mario Sironi (Abstract composition – Urban scene with carriage, Multiplication II, first half of the 20th century), the Metaphysics with authors such as Giorgio de Chirico (Piazza d’Italia, first half of the 20th century ), and Carlo Carrà (Shed on the shore, 1955), Sandro Chia’s Transavantgarde (Ossa fossa cassa, 1990; Cupido, 1996), Enzo Cucchi (Autostrada del Pensiero, 1997), Mimmo Paladino and the New Roman School with Bruno Ceccobelli, Piero Pizzi Cannella, Gianni Dessì, Nunzio Di Stefano, together with experiences, such as geometric and informal abstractionism, the mural art of Keith Haring ( Kh mural, 1989), Christo’s land art and the artist’s book genre, such as Cantata Bluia Libro dore by Pier Paolo Calzolari.
Also on display are some sculptural works: alongside the small bronze by Arnaldo Pomodoro (Disco, 1986/2003), an internationally renowned artist for monumental public art, more contemporary experiments are proposed, such as the works of Michele Savini (Anello, 2008; Coniglio, 2009) made with unusual materials such as chewing gum.
Next appointments
After the exhibitions in Milan and Reggio Calabria, the first group of works, coming from a confiscation that became definitive in 2018, will be delivered to various MiC museum institutes selected by the General Director of Museums Massimo Osanna throughout the national territory: in Milan (Pinacoteca di Brera – Palazzo Citterio), Rome (National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Museum of Civilizations and Central Institute for Graphics), Naples (Castel Sant’Elmo and Museum of Novecento) and Cosenza (National Gallery of Cosenza).
The second group of 22 works will remain in Reggio Calabria, at the Palazzo della Cultura “P. Crupi”, where, since 2016, over 100 works of art have been permanently exhibited, all part of a single confiscation carried out by the Court of Reggio Calabria in 2015 and entrusted by the Regional Secretariat of the MiC for Calabria to the metropolitan city. An Electa Editore catalog accompanies the exhibition.
Organizing committee: General Directorate of Museums of the Ministry of Culture; ANBSC-National Agency for the administration and destination of assets seized and confiscated from organized crime; Municipality of Milan – Culture Directorate – Exhibitions and Scientific Museums Area; Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria – “Pasquino Crupi” Palace of Culture.
Scientific committee: Andrea Viliani (director of the Museum of Civilizations, Ministry of Culture); Valeria Di Giuseppe Di Paolo (art historian official of the General Directorate of Museums, Ministry of Culture); Domenico Piraina (director of Culture and director of the Exhibitions and Science Museums Area, Municipality of Milan); Gianfranco Maraniello (director of the Modern and Contemporary Art Museums Area, Municipality of Milan); Domenico Michele Surace (Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of Reggio Calabria).