An encounter between Italian futurist Gerardo Dottori, Marc Chagall and other great Belarus masters will be the highlight of “Dottori, Chagall, Soutine, Khodasevich-Léger. Dinamismo, Espressione, Segni e Sogni. Sguardo sull’arte del primo Novecento fra Italia e Bielorussia” (“Dottori, Chagall, Soutine, Khodasevich-Léger. Dynamism, Expression, Signs and Dreams. A look at the Art of the Early 20th Century between Italy and Belarus”), an exhibition on show from 31 Mary to 4 July at the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus. The event is part of the Year of Italian Culture in Belarus initiative promoted by the Italian Embassy in Minsk and is co-organised thanks to the partnership between the Civic Museums of the Municipality of Perugia, the Gerardo Dottori Archives and the Art-Belarus Collection of Belgazprombank Spa, with the sponsorship of the MIBACT, the Presidency of the Council and Legislative Assembly of the Region of Umbria, the Belarusian Ministry of Culture and the City of Minsk.
The exhibition offers the unrepeatable encounter between Gerardo Dottori, the master of the “aeropainting” genre of Italian Futurism and whose 40th anniversary of his death will be celebrated this year, the poetic dreams of Marc Chagall, the expressionism of Soutine and the abstractions of Nadia Khodasevich-Léger, three masters of the artistic excellence of the first half of the 20th century of Belarusian descent.
Marinetti’s movement – of which Dottori was an eminent representative – also spread in Russia, influencing the birth of the artistic vanguards throughout Eastern Europe. The exhibition displays 14 pieces by the Italian futurist: paintings, idromatite and drawings dating from between the end of the 19th century and the early 1940s; two important paintings by Chagall portraying his typical “lovers”; a famous female portrait and a classical landscape by Soutine and several works from the Belgazprombank Collection; lastly, by Nadia Khodasevich, wife of Fernand Léger and the tutor of his artistic legacy, are two rare graphic designs from the storage rooms of the Minsk museum. The exhibition is supplemented with documents, autographs, images and journals from the Dottori Archives, in addition to documentary films on the Perugia-born futurist.
An original quartet and the highlight of different seasons and atmospheres who operated between Italy, Belarus and France, a country where all three artists of Belarusian descent mainly worked although maintaining the anthropological and cultural heritage of their country of origin.
