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'Recognizing Michelangelo' at the Accademia Gallery, Florence

On the occasion of the celebrations for the 450th anniversary of the death of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florence’s Accademia Gallery houses, from February 18 to May 18, 2014, an exhibition exploring the crucial role played by photography in Michelangelo’s popularity and in the celebration of his myth (Recognizing Michelangelo).

'Recognizing Michelangelo' at the Accademia Gallery, Florence
Michelangelo: La Pietà [Credit: Renato Sansaini, Firenze,
Collezione Ferruccio Malandrin]
The exhibition starts with the representation of Michelangelo’s features and personality from a historicist point of view through the works by Eugène Delacroix and Auguste Rodin, among others.

As the myth enters history, Michelangelo becomes the subject of works by twentieth-century artists such as Medardo Rosso, Henri Matisse, Carlo Mollino, and of photographs by Emmanuel Sougez, Herbert List and Horst P. Horst.

In the 1970s, Michelangelo finds himself at the center of the artistic research by Tano Festa, Paolo Monti, Antonia Mulas and inspires great contemporary artists of the caliber of Helmut Newton and Gabriele Basilico.

The exhibition ends with Michelangelo being the model and subject for staged photography works by Frank Horvat, Youssef Nabil and Kim Ki duk, and “ absence” in the pictures by Thomas Struth and Candida Höfer.

Source: Firenze Made In Tuscany [January 29, 2014]