Trieste, 17 December 2019 – A great exhibition dedicated to the extraordinary Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher opening at the Salone degli Incanti in Trieste, from 18 December 2019 to 7 June 2020.

Discovered by the greater public over the last few years, Escher has internationally become one of the most beloved artists, whose exhibitions have broken all records in terms of numbers of visitors. Escher was born in 1898 in The Netherlands where he died in 1972. In 1922 he came to Italy for the first time, a country where he lived and travelled widely for many years, depicting it in several of his works. Throughout his career, this restless, reserved and truly extraordinary artist produced celebrated etchings and lithographs capturing a unique, phantasmagorical, impossible world where art, mathematics, science, physics and design came together.

This anthological exhibition presenting about 200 works including Escher’s most representative masterpieces that have made him famous around the world opens in Trieste thanks to a collaboration between the City of Trieste and Arthemisia with Generali Valore Cultura confirming an effective partnership that initiated with the blockbuster exhibition I Love Lego.

Entitled Escher, this exhibition outlines the career of the Dutch genius through his most iconic and recognizable works including Hand with Reflecting Sphere (1935), Bond of Union (1956), Metamorphosis II (1939), Day and Night (1938), and the Emblemata series. Presented for the first time in this Trieste exhibition is also The Days of Creation, a nucleus of six xylography works produced between December 1925 and March 1926 describing the first six days of the Creation of the World.

The exhibition is supported by two exceptional partners: PromoTurismoFVG and Generali Valore Cultura whose shared objective is to make artistic and cultural initiatives accessible to an ever wider public while also promoting the territory.
On the occasion of this exhibition PromoTurismoFVG, with Confindustria Venezia Giulia, Federalberghi Trieste and Associazione Bed and Breakfast FVG, have activated a unique and unprecedented initiative in Italy: to offer a free ticket to the exhibition to those spending at least one night in Trieste, in one of the accommodation facilities that have joined the Gift for Guests project. Its purpose is to promote cultural tourism in the city rewarding visitors with a special gift from the City of Trieste that funds this initiative with the money from the tourist tax (www.discover-trieste.it).

Through Valore Cultura, Generali Italia confirms its role in Trieste as an agent for development, offering initiatives for cultural advancement on the territory. On 22 January the exhibition will be open free of charge to school groups (booking essential), followed by two Racconti dell’arte appointments, one dedicated to secondary school students and to their teachers, and the other open to the general public. These initiatives consist in a modern and engaging narration curated by art critic and curator Sergio Gaddi in which the art display interacts with new media expanding its narration to further explore the exhibition subjects and aspects of the artist’ life. The initiative will take place in Palazzo Berlam: the iconic Generali building in Trieste deeply tied to the history of the Company, that has been now reopened to the public after extensive renovation.

From 16 December, Feltrinelli Real Cinema and Wanted Cinema present in cinemas the first film-documentary by Robin Lutz dedicated to the artist entitled Escher – Journey into Infinity.
The partnership between Arthemisia and Wanted Cinema has led to the institution of two special offers: an entry ticket to a cinema in Trieste entitles to a reduction on an Escher exhibition ticket. Vice versa, an exhibition ticket entitles to a reduction on the ticket to see the film.
Furthermore, by presenting a ticket to any ongoing Arthemisia exhibition in any cinema across Italy projecting the film, viewers are entitled to a special reduction on the film-documentary ticket.

Promoted and organised by the City of Trieste, Department for Culture and Gruppo Arthemisia with Generali Valore Cultura, in collaboration with M. C. Escher Foundation, this exhibition is curated by Mark Veldhuysen – CEO at M.C. Escher Company – and Federico Giudiceandrea – one of the world’s leading Escher experts – and also supported by PromoTurismoFVG, with special partner Ricola and Sky Arte media coverage.

The exhibition

Escher, the one-of-a-kind artist who loved to say “wonder is the salt of the earth”, must be credited for expanding the imaginative powers of graphic works, inspiring a sense of wonder into all who have the opportunity to admire his creations, where everything – science, nature, analytical vision, and contemplation – finds a connection. Starting from his early art-nouveau works from his years at Jessurun de Mesquita’s school, this exhibition mainly focuses on Escher’s sojourn in Italy.
Finding inspiration from the art of his day and of the past, the artist interprets geometry and rigour in the visionary framework of the purest aesthetic research. Escher was a versatile and contemporary artist who in his work has been able to anticipate future artistic movements, such as Surrealism and Optical Art, of which he can be considered an exponent ahead of time. Numbers, geometry and mathematics are in fact not the only themes informing his creative universe. His complex genius drew from a variety of forms of expression mixing them in a new captivating discourse, that can, in this respect, be considered as a unique experience in the art of all times and that never fails to captivate the greater public.
Escher’s work that today’s new technologies seem to imitate, still stands the test of time, forty- seven years since his death.

Displaying about 200 works, the exhibition is divided into 8 sections:

Frist Section – EarlyWorks

1. Early Works
2. Italian Landscapes
3. Tessellations
4. The Structure of Space
5. Metamorphosis
6. Geometrical Paradoxes
7. Commissioned Works
8. Eschermania

The exhibition sections include games and activities allowing visitors to personally step into Escher’s marvellous world, enjoying a first-hand experience of the perspective, geometrical and compositional paradoxes the artist created in his works.

Frist Section – Early Works

This section documents young Escher’s first steps into the world of art, where he immediately showed great talent, even if by doing so he disappointed his father who instead would have wanted him to follow in his footsteps becoming an engineer. The art nouveau engraver Jessurun de Mesquita appreciated Escher’s skills that grew over time, rapidly acquiring technical mastery as well as developing a strong work ethics. In this phase Escher approached tessellation, a method of decorative and regular subdivision of the surface. During this first Dutch period he also created Flor de Pasqua for Emblemata. The exhibition also presents the six never-displayed-before xylography works from The Days of Creation series that Escher completed between December 1925 and March 1926, illustrating the first six days of Creation as described by the Bible.

Second Section – Italian Landscapes

Escher completed his training with a sojourn in Italy during which the he was able to define his artistic personality. During this period, he had his first work opportunity, a solo exhibition in Siena in 1923, and also completed his Emblemata series (that was included in the display) consisting in a booklet of illustrated mottos that the artist conceived with his friend and admirer Dutch art historian Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerff. In this work the focus in on the aspects of Italian landscape, nature and history that inspired the artist’s fervid imagination, with scenes set in Abruzzo, Campania, Calabria and Sicily. This section also includes views of the city he had chosen to reside, Rome, described by night and day.

Third Section –Tessellation

This section of the exhibition is dedicated to tessellation, an aspect that is very telling of Escher’s art nouveau background. Escher was tireless in his teaching activity and held conferences and demonstrations to explain the principles of a regular division of the surface, and even produced a booklet in this subject in 1957. This part of the exhibition includes a video dedicated to the Alhambra, the monument in Granada that Escher visited and drew, finding inspiration for his tessellations.

Fourth Section – The Structure of Space

What fascinated Escher was the exploration of “the structure of space” and this is the reason why a whole exhibition section has been dedicated to this specific subject in its various aspects: the rendition of “reflective surfaces” (starting from the curved Hand with Reflective Sphere); the description of space itself, for instance in the etching Depth (that is transformed into  a real walkable spatial perspective); and strips and geometric solids.

Fifth Section – Metamorphosis

Another important aspect Escher explored in his work is his reflection on the world: the transformation of one shape into another, a theme that found its highest expression in his famous masterpiece entitled Metamorphosis II (1939). This great xylography work explores the theme of the transmutation of an image that seamlessly morphs into another creating a circular pattern which starts from and ends with the Dutch word “metamorphose” across the most unimaginable situations, ranging from lizards to  beehives, from birds to the Duomo of Atrani.

Sixth Section – Geometrical Paradoxes

The works in this section illustrate the shift from two- to three-dimensional representations. The paradox and, most importantly, the challenge is that of obtaining a spatial illusion within the perimeter of the sheet of paper, suggesting the realistic effect of this transformation, drawing and etching a subject that deceives the eye, like in the captivating Three Spheres.These are the indispensable premises to access the paradox of Escher’s space, as in AnotherWorld, UpandDown, Relativity, and in the exasperated repetition of the so-called Droste effect as we can see in PrintGallery.

Seventh Section – Commissioned Works

Like all artists, Escher’s production does not only consist of mayor works: everyday life required some form of income although Escher was rather wealthy. This section is therefore dedicated to his commissioned works, including his ex libris (bookplates that were pasted inside books part of a private library), cards, illustrations or other occasional commissioned projects. What is extraordinary is the quality of this production, on a par with that of his major works. These somewhat minor projects often provided an occasion to experiment solutions that Escher would later include in his “major works”.

Eighth Section – Eschermania

An artist’s greatness can be measured on his capacity of influencing other artists and society in general. This is why the exhibition closes with a section entitled with “Eschermania”, a neologism expressing how Escher’s production has in fact widely met these two parameters.
Once out of the printing press, his artworks left is studio to transform into gift boxes, stamps, cards; they reached the world of comics, fashion, pop music record covers, advertising, cinema. But there is more. Escher’s great art greatly influenced in varying degrees other prominent figures of the twentieth century: Victor Vasarely, for instance, the key exponent of Optical Art, or his many followers that still today look up to his production and to that of their master.

Opening Times

From Monday to Sunday, 9.30-19.30 (last entry 18.30)

Tickets

Full price € 14,00 Audioguide included
Reduced € 12,00 Audioguide included

Information and booking

T. + 39 040982831
www.mostraescher.itwww.triestecultura.it

Information about Escher – Journey into Infinity
info@wantedcinema.euwww.wantedcinema.eu

Officialhashtag
#EscherTrieste

Press Offices City of Trieste
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Arthemisia
Adele Della Sala |ads@arthemsia.it M. +39 3457503572
Anastasia Marsella |am@arthemisia.it
Salvatore Macaluso |sam@arthemisia.it press@arthemsia.it |T. +39 0669308306
www.arthemisia.it

Generali Italia
Renato Agalliu |renato.agalliu@generali.com
Carla Di Leva |carla.dileva@generali.com

PromoTurismoFVG
Tatjana Familio |press@promoturismo.fvg.it T. +39 0431387111