miércoles, 30 de julio de 2025

MOSTRA “LA PROPORZIONE AUREA, ROMA. Y DRACULA, LUC BESSON

Relazioni umane, relazioni materiali ma anche relazioni spirituali. Questo il fil rouge della mostra “La Proporzione Aurea: un viaggio tra emozioni, armonia e conoscenza” (laproporzioneaurea.com), proposta da Fondazione Relazionésimo ETS e in apertura il prossimo 10 luglio allo spazio WeGil di Roma, hub culturale della Regione Lazio a Trastevere, gestito dalla società in house LAZIOcrea.

In esposizione ci saranno opere inedite di artisti di diverse generazioni: da Michelangelo Pistoletto, pittore e scultore di fama internazionale, fino a Erica Tamborini. 

Al centro ci sarà il concetto della “proporzione” come linguaggio universale che collega arte, scienza ed economia, mostrando come le grandi trasformazioni della storia siano sempre nate da dialoghi interdisciplinari. 

Un percorso tra arte, scienza e filosofia dedicato al concetto universale di armonia, con opere e installazioni originali di artisti di varie generazioni. 

Si parte dalle intuizioni di Luca Pacioli, matematico e frate francescano, maestro e amico di Leonardo da Vinci, che con il suo lavoro sulla «divina proporzione», in pieno umanesimo seppe intrecciare scienza, arte e spiritualità, estendendosi fino all’era contemporanea degli algoritmi, dell’economia, delle relazioni, del design parametrico fino alla modernità dell’intelligenza artificiale. 

Le connessioni tra economia, scienza e arte non sono semplici esercizi intellettuali, ma veri e propri strumenti per governare la complessità dell’oggi. 

Dal 10 luglio al 18 settembre, le sale di WeGil, storico edificio romano progettato da Luigi Moretti, diventano palcoscenico di un viaggio nel cuore di questo enigma, attraverso La Proporzione Aurea, organizzata da Fondazione Relazionésimo ETS.

In un mondo che ha bisogno di nuove forme di interazione e cooperazione, “La Proporzione Aurea” diventa così un’occasione per riaffermare l’importanza del dialogo tra opposti, sia nella progettazione estetica sia nelle dinamiche sociali. 

“Abbiamo preferito parlare di proporzione piuttosto che di sezione aurea – spiega Ombretta Zulian, tra i curatori del progetto e fondatrice, con Ketty Panni, di Relazionésimo – perché volevamo evocare non solo un rapporto matematico, ma un principio di relazione, armonia e misura condivisa. Proporzione significa letteralmente “mettere in relazione”, trovare un equilibrio dinamico tra le parti.  

Nella tradizione umanistica, la proporzione aurea è simbolo di bellezza, armonia e conoscenza. La proporzione aurea non è dunque una formula: è una visione. E oggi, forse più che mai, abbiamo bisogno di visioni capaci di ricomporre ciò che sembra diviso”.

Il percorso espositivo, che sarà aperto dal prossimo 10 luglio fino al 18 settembre 2025, proporrà una serie di opere inedite di artisti che appartengono a generazioni culturali (ma non solo) profondamente differenti. 

“Ognuno – afferma Michelangelo Pistoletto – avendo un proprio segno, ha la chiave per entrare nella porta dell’arte, una porta che immette sia nello spazio riservato, intimo, personale, sia nello spazio degli incontri sociali”. 

Non solo Pistoletto ed Erica Tamborini, tra gli artisti in mostra ci saranno anche Jacopo Gonzato, Angelo Bonello, Duccio Forzano, Matteo Riva e Ludovica Sitajolo. Le loro creazioni non si limitano a illustrare un concetto matematico astratto: lo rendono visibile, tangibile, lo trasformano in esperienza diretta, sensoriale e riflessiva.

La location scelta da Fondazione Relazionésimo ETS è la prestigiosa WeGil, uno dei più importanti poli culturali nel cuore di Roma. L’edificio, inaugurato nel 1937 come sede della Gil, la Gioventù italiana del littorio, è un tipico esempio del razionalismo italiano progettato da Luigi Moretti, uno tra i massimi protagonisti dell’architettura del 20esimo secolo.

 “In rispettoso dialogo con la cornice del WeGil, progettato dall’architetto Moretti, la mostra mette in relazione artisti di diverse scuole e generazioni, da Michelangelo Pistoletto a Erica Tamborini, da Fibonacci a Leonardo, da Fidia a Luca Pacioli, tutti chiamati a confrontarsi con un tema al tempo stesso antico e attuale. Quale rapporto c’è tra arte e scienza e tra etica e forme del bello? 

Ma, soprattutto, possiamo davvero conoscere senza prima sentire? La risposta è nel percorso della mostra che, toccando temi e spunti classici, dalla sezione aurea alle proporzioni, li rende attuali nella forma dell’esperienza estetica”, spiega il critico d’arte Rolando Bellini, parte integrante del team curatoriale della mostra.

La mostra, che è parte di un progetto itinerante che nel 2023 ha avuto la sua prima tappa nella Basilica Palladiana di Vicenza, è sostenuta da un prestigioso network di istituzioni, tra cui Regione Lazio, LAZIOcrea e WeGil, la Città Metropolitana di Roma Capitale, il Dicasterium de Cultura et Educatione, l’Ordine degli Architetti di Roma, Ala – Assoarchitetti e Ingegneri.

La Proporzione Aurea vuole contribuire a rafforzare un ponte, sempre più necessario, tra saperi, un luogo dove la fruizione estetica incontra il rigore scientifico, generando nuove domande e inedite consapevolezze. 

E ancora, la mostra sarà l’occasione anche per “spaziare”, grazie ad eventi collaterali (alcuni dei quali organizzati insieme agli ordini professionali). Il ciclo di eventi “Armonia/Dissonanza” si propone quindi come una vera e propria estensione culturale della mostra.

L’esposizione nasce dalla convinzione che la cultura possa essere un potente strumento di comprensione e trasformazione per riportare l’uomo e le sue relazioni al centro, favorendo una società più consapevole, inclusiva e capace di generare nuovi significati condivisi. 

L’esposizione si terrà dal 10 luglio al 18 settembre e sarà aperta tutti giorni dalle 10 alle 19 ad ingresso libero, per consentire a tutti di partecipare a questo viaggio tra armonia, emozioni e conoscenza.

https://wegil.it/attivita/mostra-la-proporzione-aurea-un-viaggio-tra-emozioni-armonia-e-conoscenza/


FILM AFFINITY

Dracula: A Love Tale

 Tras la muerte de su esposa, un príncipe del siglo XV renuncia a Dios y se convierte en vampiro. Siglos más tarde, en el Londres del siglo XIX, ve a una mujer parecida a su difunta esposa y la persigue, sellando así su propio destino.

LE NMNM PRÉSENTE LES ANNÉES FOLLES DE COCO CHANEL. ARTS IN THE CITY

« Les Années folles de Coco Chanel » s’exposent à la Villa Paloma du 19 juin au 5 octobre 2025. Plongez dans l’univers fascinant de Gabrielle Chanel à travers l’exposition « Les Années folles de Coco Chanel », présentée à la Villa Paloma. Cette exposition explore la production de la créatrice dans le contexte envoûtant de la Côte d’Azur des années 1920.

Trois grandes thématiques structurent le parcours :

  La vie en plein air et lessor des loisirs balnéaires

  Les Ballets russes et linfluence des cultures slaves

  Linvention du « style Riviera »

À travers un riche mélange de textures, objets et œuvres, cette exposition rend hommage à l’une des figures majeures de la mode moderne. Elle célèbre l’invention par Chanel de la « femme nouvelle », une femme libre, indépendante et résolument moderne.


 ARTS IN THE CITY NEWS

Cette semaine, on vise en plein cœur de la France ! 
Au programme : bal masqué dans un château, sculptures d'orfèvre géantes et des jardins absolument féeriques. 

L'ÉTRANGE BAL MASQUÉ D'AZAY-LE-RIDEAU

Tous au château ! Pour célébrer son cinquième centenaire, le château d’Azay-le-Rideau voit les choses en grand : l’artiste Volker Hermes y appose sa touche singulière. Ici d'étranges portraits cachés, visages masqués et regards oubliés prennent vie… Et vous êtes les invités d’honneur de ce bal hors du temps !

On regarde... discrètement
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DES JARDINS SORTIS TOUT DROIT D'UN CONTE

Il était une fois… un château sur la Loire. Le Festival International des Jardins nous transporte dans un monde enchanté et féerique ! À cette occasion, plus de trente créations végétales venues des quatre coins du monde déploient leurs sortilèges.

Il était une fois

100 YEARS OF MIKIS THEODORAKIS. BRITISH LIBRARY. THE ICE SHIRT, BOOK BY VOLLMANN, NOW IN SPANISH

Portrait of Theodorakis, 1971 © Heinrich Klaffs,       

2025 marks 100 years since the birth of Mikis Theodorakis (1925–2021), arguably the most globally renowned Greek composer of the twentieth century and, for many, the architect of modern Greek musical identity. While the bouzouki theme of Zorba’s Dance fromthe film Zorba the Greek (1964), alongside his other popular film scores, continues to dominate public memory, Theodorakis was far more than the composer of these iconic melodies. 

Over the course of his prolific career, he composed more than a thousand works, including operas, symphonic and chamber music, and politically charged song cycles. 

He also published numerous monographs on music theory and analysis, and on music’s relationship to its social, cultural, political and historical context. Anchored in a deeply patriotic political-cultural vision, Theodorakis's music gave voice to the collective struggle of the Greek people for freedom from oppression.

The British Library holds an array of material relating to Theodorakis: editions of his published scores including in various arrangements, recordings of his music, and a number of his monographs. This blog post spotlights a selection of these collection items to illustrate how Theodorakis’s published legacy offers crucial insights into his enduring cultural impact on both the musical and political life of the twentieth century, and the complex relationship between the two.

Early years: Political background and musical studies

Born on 29 July 1925, Theodorakis moved to Athens in 1943 and began studies at the Athens Conservatoire. During the Second World War and the Nazi Occupation of Greece (1941–1944), he became involved in the military wing of the largest and most popular resistance group, the Greek People’s Liberation Army or ELAS (Ellinikós Laïkós Apeleftherotikós Stratós).

The relief at the withdrawal of German occupying forces from mainland Greece in October 1944 was short-lived, as Athens descended into brutal internecine fighting. The clashes between leftist resistance organisations and right-wing groups became known as theDecember Events (Dekemvrianá). These escalated into a full-scale Civil War, which raged until 16 October 1949.

Due to his communist convictions and involvement in ELAS, Theodorakis was arrested and exiled to the prison islands of Psitalia and Ikaria, and later to Makronisos. There, a programme of forced anti-communist re-education was implemented under conditions of unscrupulous violence and terror and Theodorakis was brutally tortured. Owing to family connections, he was released from Makronisos in August 1949, after which he travelled to Crete.

During his recovery, Theodorakis began to write essays on Greek music. In these, he condemned the musical establishment and its entrenched divisions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. After completing his mandatory military service in 1950, he graduated from the Athens Conservatoire and began working as a journalist. He continued publishing critiques of the Greek musical landscape, especially its failure, in his view, to produce an ‘authentic’ national music.[i]

In 1954, he moved to Paris, where he studied musical analysis with Olivier Messiaen and conducting with Eugene Bigot.

Between two worlds: Studies in Paris

In Paris, Theodorakis encountered a musical climate characterised by high modernist, avant-garde aesthetics.He faced the challenge of navigating these prevailing musical trends while remaining faithful to his nationalist and Marxist ideals: to create art that was accessible, inclusive, and politically edifying for the people. Expressing this tension, he stated in 1960: I am unable to follow strictly any of the aesthetic trends prevailing in the West, [within which] my Greek sensibility feels more than restricted: it feels betrayed.’

Theodorakis returned to Greece in 1960, coinciding with the publication of a manifesto he co-authored entitled A Draft Plan for the Reorganization of Greek Music. The text, published in the journal Kritiké (Criticism), declared that Most sectors of [Greek] musical life are seriously ailing, and called for reforms in music education, the creation of independent symphony orchestras, and a greater emphasis on the study of both Greek Church and popular music. 


Music for the masses: Art-popular song

Theodorakis’s vision for a politically conscious, national-popular aesthetic was beginning to take shape, but it was not emerging in the concert hall. In the 1950s and 1960s, he rose to prominence with the consolidation of a genre which became known aséntechno laïkó tragoúdi,orart-popular song.

Assuming the role once occupied by representatives of the Greek National School of Music including Manolis Kalomiris (18831962),Theodorakis sought to redefine Greek music for a new era. Art-popular songaspired to bring high art to the masses by setting renowned Greek poetry to music that brought together elements of Western symphonic tradition,rebetiko (Greek urban blues), Greek folk song, and Byzantine musical idioms such as modes and plainsong.

The agenda ofart-popular songwas fuelled by Theodorakiss communist political beliefs and his relationship with the Soviet Union, qualities that set him apart from fellow composer Manos Hadjidakis (19251994), who also helped define theart-popular songgenre but was not as politically engaged. Although Theodorakis maintained that there could be no fixed communist principles in art,[iv] hisart-popular songwas nonetheless ideologically grounded in in the social, cultural, and political principles of Socialist Realism. He was not just, as musicologist Jim Samson writes, ‘politically committed to the Marxist left; he had political ambitions and indeed a political career’,[v]and these politics were channelled into hisart-popular songs, which substituted for a possible socialist popular music.

Solidarity and resistance: Theodorakis’s legacy

Widely regarded as a symbol of resistance and solidarity against fascism, Theodorakis went into hiding during the right-wing military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. 

Listening to and performing his music was banned, and he was once again arrested and eventually interned in a concentration camp. Following an international solidarity campaign calling for his release, he was able to return to Paris in 1970.

Theodorakis made a triumphant return to Greece from his exile in Paris in 1974. He continued to compose and remained active in Greek political life, though some of his political activities, including a brief alliance with the centre-right New Democracy party, provoked controversy among his supporters.

Although his political career involved affiliations with various political parties, Theodorakis remained committed to the political ideals that shaped the genre of art-popular song. A few years before his death in 2021, he elucidated his stance in a political testament sent to the General Secretary of the Greek Communist Party or KKE (Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas):

Now, at the end of my life, at the time of reckoning, the particulars are erased from my mind and the “Big Picture” (ta Megála Megéthi) remains. This is how I recognise that my most crucial, powerful, and mature years were spent under the banner of KKE. For this reason, I want to leave this world as a communist.

This year, events are unfolding around the world to commemorate Theodorakis as a composer who challenged aesthetic boundaries and fought—through both music and politics—for a different world. He is remembered not only for his masterful and wide-ranging works, but also for the life of exile, resistance, and profound struggle that shaped them.

Dr Eirini (Irene) Diamantouli, Content Developer, Discovering Music

https://blogs.bl.uk/music/2025/07/100-years-of-mikis-theodorakis.html


The Ice-Shirt: Volume One of Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes Tapa blanda – 1 Agosto 1993


A majestic fictional evocation of the Norse arrival in the New World, from the National Book Award-winning author of Europe Central
 
The time is the tenth century A.D. The newcomers are a proud and bloody-minded people whose kings once changed themselves into wolves. 
The Norse have advanced as implacably as a glacier from Iceland to the wastes of Greenland and from there to the place they call "Vinland the Good." The natives are a bronze-skinned race who have not yet discovered iron and still see themselves as part of nature.


As William T. Vollmann tells the converging stories of these two peoples--and of the Norsewomen Freydis and Gudrid, whose venomous rivalry brings frost into paradise--he creates a tour-de-force of speculative history, a vivid amalgam of Icelandic saga, Inuit creation myth, and contemporary travel writing that yields a new an utterly original vision of our continent and its past.