Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Image gallery — Magic realism

Milan, October 18 2021 – "Realistic precision of contours, solidity of material resting well on the ground; and around it like an atmosphere of magic that makes us feel, through an intense restlessness, almost another dimension into which our life is projected". Thus, in 1928, the writer, journalist and playwright Massimo Bontempelli summarized the character of a specific declination of Italian art between the two world wars, which took the name of Magical Realism. Palazzo Reale dedicates an exhibition curated by Gabriella Belli and Valerio Terraroli to this expressive method, which was a phenomenon of transnational scope, which will be set up in its rooms by Studio Mario Bellini with Raffaele Cipolletta from 19 October 2021 to 27 February 2022.

"I am very excited to inaugurate this exhibition, the first of my mandate in Milan, which continues the line of artistic and curatorial quality now recognized at Palazzo Reale also on an international level. A line that I intend to carry forward with conviction also in the future - he declares the Councilor for Culture Tommaso Sacchi - The exhibition is the result of a project shared with private partners and, at the same time, the result of a long period of study and work to bring together the most important masterpieces and most significant works of Magical Realism. From Casorati to Carrà, from Sironi to Funi, from Oppi to Martini, the public will be able to return to the effervescent climate of those years, wandering along a path selected by very prestigious curators, such as Gabriella Belli and Valerio Terraroli, set up by Mario Bellini".

Promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan-Cultura, Palazzo Reale and 24 Ore Cultura-Gruppo 24 Ore, the exhibition, thirty years after the last Milanese exhibition on the theme, returns to offer the public a special opportunity to learn about or delve deeper - thanks to a precise philological and historiographical reconstruction - into the phenomenon of Magical Realism, which concerns a period of Italian art limited, in its most creative and original phase, to approximately fifteen years, between 1920 and 1935. 

In the itinerary, which displays more than eighty masterpieces from important collections and museums, the collection of Emilio Bertonati (1934-1981), a great gallery owner and art critic who, sensing the artistic significance of movement, purchased many works from artists who recognized themselves in the Magical Realism movement. 

The chronological-philological path revolves around Italian masterpieces of this specific artistic and cultural climate, in turn related to some works of the so-called German "New Objectivity", which Emilio Bertonati was the first to promote and make known in Italy in the early 1900s. Sixty through the Galleria del Levante. Comparisons will also be with the characters of Margherita Sarfatti's Italian twentieth century, from which Magical Realism is distinguished, but with which it shares some artistic personalities such as Achille Funi, Mario Sironi, Ubaldo Oppi. 

The catalog of the exhibition "Magical Realism. An Italian style" is published by 24 Ore Cultura and available for sale at the exhibition bookshop, in all bookstores and online.