Exhibition
A new chapter in the program of exhibitions by contemporary artists within one of Milan’s most historic complexes, the exhibition presents works that engage with their setting and its traces of the past: historic furnishings, stones dating to the time of Saint Ambrose and works of early art.
For this occasion, Arienti has created a new work in dialogue with the large panel of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Altobello Melone (Cremona, 1490/91 – before 1543), recently restored, on loan from the Archbishop’s Palace in Milan and exceptionally exhibited at the Museo Diocesano.
The exhibition itinerary starts from the early Christian cemetery where a series of flowers painted in tempera on paper lead the visitor to reflect on the theme of the necropolis of Christian martyrs and on the practice of cult of the dead, and continues in the basilica of Sant’Eustorgio; here there are references to popular decoration, such as the carpets dyed black or red in the Chapter House and in the Monumental Sacristy, and reinterpretations of works of art such as the Sunflowers and the Irises by Van Gogh, whose backgrounds, covered with gold and silver sheets, recall the continuity between still life painting and icons; thus other masterpieces by Van Gogh and Renoir underwent the intervention of Arienti who gave the installation an unusual depth through the use of plasticine which increased the materiality of the colour.
The reinterpretation of the Procession of the Magi by Michelino da Besozzo, in the Solarian chapels, where the reinterpretation on a green cloth has been superimposed on a curtain, ideally introduces the room of the Museo Diocesano where the Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Altobello da Melone is exhibited. Arienti also comments on this work by placing it alongside a cloth on which, with silver and gold ink, he traced some of its salient lines. The enlargement and isolation of the individual figures and the creation of a suggestive immersive environment heighten the sensation of being in the presence of the preparatory drawing of the work, into which the visitor is invited to immerse himself to grasp its deepest meaning.
