This catalogue was published on the occasion of Pier Paolo Calzolari’s solo exhibition at Galleria Giorgio Persano in Turin from 17 May to 31 July 2001. A critical essay by Luciana Rogozinski accompanies the images to explore the themes of Calzolari’s art and pauses to analyse his works, grasping their poetics and meaning: “Annunciation, Revelation, Trace: to indicate the transit of the luminous substance in the world’s day, Calzolari’s images are organised like an itinerary by stations. But this journey opens up like a theatre rose: wandering between one and another station in space, the pilgrims of the vision become witnesses and, in the acts of their own bewilderment or ecstasy, parts of the same landscape of the image: ‘figures’.” (Luciana Rogozinski)

The volume is published in occasion of Gian Marco Montesano’s solo exhibit (May 14th - July 6th 2003), that continues the cycle of exhibits dedicates to Piedmontese artists called Profili, set up at Galleria di San Filippo in Turin. 

Other than being the exhibit’s catalogue, the volume is an artist’s book rich in images and critical contributions, among which a conversation between the curators and the artist and an essay that goes into detail of Gian Marco Montesano’s artistic career, along with autobiographical writings and a wide anthology. 

The wide amount of images reproduced in the catalogue, divided by theme, include the cycle of one hundred drawings named Cinema Italia, that goes through the Twentieth century as in a carousel, made of still images, private memories and collective events, moving through History and stories, society and culture, costumes and memories. 

The section dedicated to the boards offers a selection of Montesano’s artistic production, illustrating some of his many favorite subjects and themes: from art’s Catholic heart to representation of dictators of the Twentieth century, from the local atmospheres of foretaste to quotes of gendered cinema, from images to sports under dictatorships, from war scenes to feminine portraits. 

The catalogue documents Mario Merz’s first solo exhibition in Brazil. The exhibition, curated by Danilo Eccher, was planned as a travelling event and was presented in the spaces of the Pinacoteca do Estado in São Paulo, the Paço Imperial in Rio de Janeiro and the Museu de Arte Moderna in Salvador di Bahia, after having been hosted in the spaces of the Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires. The exhibition included works and large-scale installations that the book documents through a large number of photographs.

The Belgian artist Panamarenko is described by Nico Orengo as the toy maker from Antwerp because of the ludic and experimental peculiarity of a great many of his works.
The character of the children rhyme is Panamarenko/Pepto Bismo, a sculpture of the artist and a flying little man who, after leaving his studio in Antwerp, allows himself a journey by flight and by sea. Then he is fished out for being exhibited at the Biennale of Venice. But Pepto Bismo has a free mood-attitude and, on board of a white improbable airship, he will run away to come back to the stillness of the countryside, after visiting Giotto at the Cappella degli Scrovegni, where he will test new “Unidentified Flying Objects”.

Nico Orengo (Turin, 1944-2009), has written, among others, A-ulì-ulè. Filastrocche, conte, ninnenanne, (Einaudi, Torino, 1972) and Spiaggia, sdraio e ombrellone (Einaudi, Torino, 1999), Dogana d’amore, (Rizzoli, Milano, 1987), poems like Cartoline di mare (Einaudi, Torino, 1984), Terre blu (Melangolo, 2000), a touching and philosophical fairy tale for adults with the title L’allodola e il cinghiale (Einaudi, Torino, 2001), illustrated by Luigi Mainolfi, and the much praised novel La curva del latte (Einaudi, Torino, 2002) about the political and cultural changes of the late 1950s.

Panamarenko (Antwerp, 1940 - Brakel, 2003), artist and inventor, he was one of the most relevant personalities of the Belgian panorama in the 70s. Between ’62 and ’64 he experiments, together with Hugo Heyrman, with new materials, chiefly polyesters, which enabled the most varied of objects to be made. Prolific, visionary, experimental, Panamarenko has created an incredible set of objects with which “to play”, in which Utopya plays an important role. His first, real “machines” such as Prova-Car, a white metal model of a futuristic racing car, or the human-propulsion Airship (also called Six-bladed Helicopter) as well as the flying machines he was to build later, are the superbe result of an alchemy made of sofisticated calculations and archaic construction which evoke the poetic, epic dimension of human flight, lost since Leonardo da Vinci, and restore the nostalgic image of the pioneer, of adventure and exploration. 

The catalogue was published for the anthological exhibition held from 26 February to 4 May 2003, with the contribution of the City of Turin and the Piedmont Region, at the Accademia Albertina delle Belle Arti in Turin, which sought to present to the public the production of one of the most important artists in the Piedmontese art scene. The book is a tribute to Gino Gorza and his creative and professional career, which made an important contribution to the cultural growth of Turin.
Introduced by in-depth critical essays by Pino Mantovani, Marco Rosci and Francesco De Bartolomeis, the catalogue reproduces about one hundred works, accompanied by detailed biographical notes written by Anna Maglioni, and provides an exhaustive account of Gorza’s artistic personality, both through his works and through the autograph writings reproduced in their entirety.
The photographic documentation of Gorza’s work opens with the Ritratto del modello of 1949 and continues with the figure-signs of the Icone of the 1950s and the iconographic memories of the Panoplies, before lingering over the centrality of the experience of the Anamorfi and Bivalvi of the 1960s. Passing from the extreme essentiality of the Atti visivi and the aesthetic interpretation of silk in Artemis, we arrive at the musical trend of the Avverbi which constitute his last production together with the Interpunzioni and Alpha. Finally, a large section is dedicated to drawings: among others, the refined series on Nepalese paper.
The catalogue closes with an updated and complete biography and bibliography.

The story tells of a teacher, Miss Pizzi, who took the children of the Terza C class in the Kingdom of Silence - a wood at the border of the city - and lost everybody there. Then the journalists, soldiers and policemen came, but nor them and nor the town mayor could make the children come back from the Silent Wood. Luì, a crazy child who stands for hours under the rain and listens to the leaves speaking, will solve the situation going into the wood simply armed of his imagination, catching shapes and colours and the armony that they produce in Art, a music that shed into the hole wood and made the children follow it and get out of the Silent labyrinth.

The words by Guido Quarzo let the children live landscapes of sounds, shapes and colours, suggested by the works by Luigi Mainolfi, things that would like to become nature in spite of adverse temptations.

Luigi Mainolfi, born at Rotondi (AV) in 1948, he completed his studies at the Accademia di Napoli, gaining a diploma in painting. In the Seventies, he moved to Turin, where he taught at an arts-based high school. From 1979, with the realisation of the Bell, he took a determined step towards a rebirth of sculpture in the panorama of contemporary art. He makes his sculptures using terracotta, wood, bronze and other metals. Blending nature and artifice, and so creating ambiguous, surprising crosses; fabulous monsters able to stimulate our fantasy and arouse unexpected ideas.

Guido Quarzo, born in Torino in 1948, a graduate in pedagogy, he has worked for many years in primary school education, both as teacher and as instructor. In particular, he has worked with theatre for children, writing scripts, and organising workshops and shows. Since 1989, he has begun to publish narrative texts for children of various ages which have won him numerous literary prizes. In 1999, he left the teaching sector to dedicate himself completely to writing. With hopefulmonster he has also published Tales of stone and more and Il costruttore di torri.