Located in the Civic Museum of Ascona and the Tornielli Museum of Ameno.

The project foresees the launch of an annual twinning of contemporary Italian and Swiss artists who will work on the same theme, leading to the moment of the unveiling of the exhibition at the two museum seats, in Ameno and Ascona. The starting point for this first year will be an already scheduled exhibit at the Museum of Ascona that will include the graphic artwork of Olga Carolina Rama, in arte Carolrama. Rama is an internationally renowned artist from Torino and is a member of the M.A.C. who, in 2003, received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 50th Venice Biennale.

At the same time, the Casa Serodine space (Serodine House, part of the Ascona Museum) will inaugerate two contemporary artists, Francesca Gagliardi (Ameno, Piedmont) and Luca Mengoni (Bellinzona, Canton Ticino, Switzerland) who, in the course of their artistic production have viewed Carol Rama as a model, seeking inspiration from her way with poetics, especially the style of the last creation, biting but also tenderly sentimental.

The laboratory exhibit will launch June 28, 2013 in Ascona and will launch July, 5 2013 in Ameno.

With this exhibit, the artists therefore intend to introduce a series of etchings, ceramics, and fused bronze that will interact with their surrounding space. These works of art were created for the exhibit at the Campo Nomade Primaverile (Springtime Nomadic Field) in Sabbione, Valbavona (in the Canton Ticino region of Switzerland).
The exhibition of the young artists Gagliardi and Mengoni will be set up in the historical rooms of the Tornielli Museum, falling under the international contemporary art event Studi Aperti (Open Studios) Arts Festival, organized by Asilo Bianco. The exhibition will launch July 5, 2013. A catalog of the artwork will accompany the double exhibit and will include textus receptus, interviews, and photographic equipment related to the museum spaces and the artwork.

The exhibition will take place in the Museum Space at the Tornielli Palace.

The core of the community collection that will be displayed in Italy includes mostly Swiss artists, but also Russians, Poles, Romanians, Germans, and Austrians. The fundamental elements that emerge here are the “connections” between diverse individuals, the well-woven network that extends far beyond a given origin or nationality. Some of the artists involved have donated their own personal collections in addition to their personal works of art. For example, Marianne Werefkin will include artist friends such as Cuno Amiet, Paul Klee, and Arthur Segal. The “utopian” society that arose atop Monte Verità  at the beginning of the century includes patron artist participants such as Herman Hesse, who hobnobbed about the mountain with Gusto Graser and Ernst Frick, a friend of the psychoanalyst Otto Gross.

The exhibit examines the culture that expanded within the artistic and intellectual community of the time, which the museum and its collection seek to preserve to this day through the tangible display that places historical memories in the context of contemporary society.

To complete the exhibit’s syllabus visitors will meet Mara Folini, the director of the Civic Museum. She will describe the origins of the collection and Ascona’s artistic environment during the early 1920s with the projection of historical films and documentaries.