Marco Belpoliti

Happiness and melancholia were the two extremes that marked the life and artistic career of Ettore Sottsass: happiness at having experienced the lost but ever-present paradise of childhood; sorrow at not being able to return there, not being able to stop time. The organisational psychologist and photographer Giuseppe Varchetta started photographing Ettore Sottsass in 1978, when the designer was already sixty, and continued to do so for the rest of his life. In this discreet, attentive, at times intimate account, Varchetta examines his friend’s face and follows his gradual changes, capturing all the nuances of that mournful expression, and, beyond the sadness, a smile that was an explosion of empathy.

After the book Camera straniera,devoted to Giacometti, Marco Belpoliti sets out to explore the life and works of another great artist, Francisco Goya. Analysing a series of drawings, portraits and self portraits, the author traces Goya’s life and artistic career, uncovering traces of his “secret”: the progressive hearing loss that began in the artist’s 30s and ended up completely cutting him off from the outside world around 1792, halfway through his life. This disability greatly influenced his art, and the fantasy elements and chimera that inhabit his works are an eloquent expression of the anguish and despair of his isolation.

One of the leading artists of the twentieth century, Alberto Giacometti’s works now fetch a premium at international auctions. His oeuvre addresses multiple themes and spans almost all forms of visual art (drawing, painting and sculpture). In this variegated panorama Marco Belpoliti focuses on a common, very powerful theme in the artist’s work: space. From the circumscribed space inside rooms to that surrounding the artist’s sculptures, especially the large scale creations designed for public areas, Belpoliti is our guide to writings and artworks, declarations and interpretations, family relationships and friendships, exploring not only physical space but also the great artist’s emotional space.