Guna Contemporary is currently curating the 8-month institutional exhibition and nomadic curatorship project Gastone Novelli: Saturnia, the Origins, the Magic of the Sign. The exhibition aims to enhance the hidden historical relevance for the contemporary art scene of Saturnia, a small village located far away from the mainstream contemporary art scene.

Gastone Novelli Cosmografia, Statement of Facts, Vulcan mit Sonne und Bewohner
Gastone Novelli Caos nell'acquilone
The exhibition reconstructs the relationship of Gastone Novelli, a noted post-war informal art painter, to the small Etruscan village. It presents the visual language of Gastone Novelli expressed in all of his media – paintings, drawings and sculptures – alongside a selection of archaeological finds discovered near Saturnia, an ancient village of Etruscan origin that the artist frequented for years and with which he developed a fusional relationship.
Detail of the exhibition Gastone Novelli Saturnia curated by Guna Contemporary
Detail of the exhibition Gastone Novelli Saturnia curated by Guna Contemporary
Detail of the exhibition Gastone Novelli Saturnia curated by Guna Contemporary
The project shows the territory through heterogeneous perspectives: from the archetypical nature of the archaeological finds, to the transfiguration of the landscape in the visual language of Novelli.
Gastone Novelli, drawings and the painting Pianeta in Amore alonside archaeological artefacts
Gastone Novelli dedicated his most accomplished artistic research to the investigation of the sign. In his poetics, the sign is the foundational element for the creation of a personal alphabetic language capable of expressing possible universes. In the construction of his language, Novelli assimilates elements from multiple aspects of reality, from earthenware fragments to body parts, and from ancient symbolism to literary experimentation.
bronze sculpture Vulcan mit Sonne und Bewohner by Gastone Novelli
Gastone novelli, Sculptures Le tue parole inciampano nelle mie estasi, Vetta, Bruit Bruit

The exhibition design presents cubes and parallelepipeds, creating a dynamic space that, with games of solids, voids and ideal extensions of the lines, invites the visualisation of those ‘different horizons’ of which Novelli speaks in his architectural composition lessons, and which he himself traces in his artistic practice.

Guna Contemporary used a collaborative curatorial approach with the territory, creating a web of working relationships between the Archivio Gastone Novelli, the museum Polo Culturale Pietro Aldi, the local council, Terme di Saturnia Spa and many other local organisations and companies, both public and private.

The exhibition is held in Satunia, at Polo Aldi from 9 April 2022 to 8 January 2023.

Images of the work of Gastone Novelli © Archivio Gastone Novelli.

Images of archaeological finds © Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le province di Siena, Arezzo e Grosseto.