Meeting 2006

MEETING
EXHIBITS 2006

>> So many stars… for what?
The Milky Way in science,
history, and art
Organized by Marco Bersanelli, Mario Gargantini, Davide Maino, Nicola Sabatini, and Elio Sindoni, with consultants Francesco Bertola and Massimo Robberto
Through spectacular high-definition images of the Milky Way, the exhibit introduces an understanding of the Galaxy as “the great periphery” of our earthly environment. It will also feature videos and various multimedia auxiliaries, as well as reproductions of art work inspired by the Milky Way, historical documents (including Galileo’s first observations), and original instruments that have gradually revealed the physical nature of our Galaxy. The center of the exhibit will host an 18-foot diameter planetarium.

>> Budapest, 1956:
The Revolution
Photo reportage by Erich Lessing
The Budapest Revolution is one of the great testimonies to freedom in the last century. Remembering it today, fifty years later, does not just mean retelling the story of a particular historical event, but listening to the cry that is in every man, in every time. The 1956 Budapest Revolution will be told through the masterworks of the photographer Erich Lessing. Born in Vienna in 1923, he photographed the Second World War, following the English Army. He worked principally for Life, Paris Match, Picture Post, Epoca, and Quick Magazine, documenting the political events in post-war Europe, and above all the events in the Communist countries that were being formed in that period.

>> Classica majestas:
The return to the ancient,
from Arnolfo to Giotto
Organized by Marco Bona Castellotti
The return to the ancient animates the “renascence” of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with a different spirit than that of the Renaissance period, and takes form in different ways in the works of some master artists between the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries. In the span of time between about 1270 and 1320, this magnificent “renascence” plays its hand. Artists of the caliber of Nicola Pisano, Arnolfo di Cambio, Pietro Cavallini, Giotto, Andrea Pisano, and Giovanni Pisano are the greatest protagonists of this return to classicism.

>> With our hands, but with Your
strength: The works of the
Benedictine monastic tradition
Organized by the monks of the Cascinazza and the Foundation for Subsidiarity
The title of this exhibition does not intend to diminish the importance of work, the expression of human freedom, but to document how Christian work is not born of a project, but as an example; first of all, it is not born to solve the problems of the world, but as wonder, a wonder that is the overflowing abundance of what corresponds to the heart. All that is done according to this method is, in the end, more adequate to the total need of the person. The exhibition seeks to highlight the method by which a work is born in a true way (opus Dei) and how it can conserve this truth in its development over time.

>> Edward Hopper
Organized by Elena Pontiggia, with the collaboration of Paola Bacuzzi, Silvia Banzatti, Andrea Bonalume, Gabriele Cantoni, Camillo Fornasieri, Miriam Melzi, and Marco Vianello
In the America of the Wall Street crisis and the New Deal, the great realist painter Edward Hopper (1882-1967) places himself before everyday life with a gaze that, disillusioned and melancholy, searches for a meaning. In fact, the artist opens out to the possibility of the Infinite, looking for traces of it in the reality surrounding him, in the restricted horizon of small-town America. He catches a house, a lighthouse, a shop, or a figure in a state of suspension and fixedness, immersed in the decisive, dense, almost metaphysical light that constitutes the factor of newness, the possibility of the Infinite that introduces itself into an immobile everyday life. The exhibit will illustrate Hopper’s poetics, underlining its ties with philosophy (Emerson) and poetry (Verlaine, Goethe, and Frost).

>> Igor Stravinsky:
A 20th-century maestro
Organized by Roberto Andreoni and Walter Muto, with the collaboration of Ermes Angelon, Ivano Conti, and Marco Vinello
The great cosmopolitan Russian spanned the entire century of artistic “isms” without the problematic nature of much of the avant-garde, never imprisoned by ideological barriers or preconceived notions. Through multiple video projections, the exhibit presents an ever-changing patchwork of images in motion based on quotes from documentaries and archives; photos of artists and works of art from the era, whose style, author, and subject differ, but are always connected to the Stravinskyan world; brief talks by the exhibit organizers on the topics dealt with; excerpts of scores, analytical outlines, and quotes by, about, and related to Stravinsky.

>> A people rich with song: The
Pedrotti brothers and the
phenomenon of Alpine choirs
Organized by Marco Bettega, Aurelio Benetti, Chiara Benetti, Roberto Bazzanella, Alberto Lazzaretti, and Paolo Bettega, with the collaboration of Pier Paolo Bellini, Massimo Bernardini, Sandro Chierici, and Giuseppe Molino
In order to approach the world of Alpine choirs, 80 years from the first choir formed by the Pedrotti brothers, it is necessary to understand the mountain milieu, its community life, and its people’s passion for singing together. The Alpine culture finds one of its most significant expressions in choral popular song, and the choirs of Trent–above all, the SAT Choir (Società Alpinisti Tridentini, Tridentine Alpine Society)–have always represented the archetype of all Alpine choirs. The reason for the exhibit is the desire to make known, through the narration of the lives of the four brothers from Trent, the human aspects at the origin of the most beautiful Alpine choir, one that continues to thrill a large public of enthusiasts.

>> The glory of He who moves
all things: Happiness in Dante’s
Paradise
Organized by Edoardo Barbieri, Simone Carriero, Gaia Cavestri, Michele Colombo, Daniele Gomarasca, Alessandro Ledda, Gianluca Sgroi, and Marco Vianello, in collaboration with the Centocanti Association: Laura Aldorisio, Lucia Benedettini, Valentina Costantini, Irene Dionigi, Roberto Olmo, and Paolo Valentini
Dante’s journey in the Paradise, prelude to the final vision of God, testifies to an experience that is possible for man in all times, the experience of the encounter in the flesh, possible in this world, with Divine Mercy in its most lively accents. The exhibit aims at rediscovering a crucial work that is strangely neglected, especially in Italian schools. The negative prejudices accompanying Paradise can be overcome by promoting knowledge about it and showing the beauty of this third part of Dante’s masterpiece. The project takes two directions: weaving a “narrative” line (review of the most important characters, commentary on some passages) with further attention to certain topics (such as mercy) and particular situations.

>> Wisdom and the Infinite:
The tree of life
in the Otranto mosaic
Organized by Marco Rossi, Alessandro Rovetta, Marcello Tempesta, and Manuel Triggiani, with the collaboration of the students of the Catholic University of Milan, and of the University of Lecce
This exhibit, focusing attention on the prestigious pavement mosaic of the Cathedral of Otranto (1163-65), intends to open insights into the culture and knowledge of the medieval world, and will center on a large-scale photographic presentation of the Otranto mosaic, developing some themes suggested by its reading.

>> Fr. Aleksandr Men’,
the “law” of a man fully alive:
A witness in the USSR
Organized by Pavel Men’ of the Aleksandr Men’ Foundation (Moscow), and Giovanna Parravicini of the Christian Russia Foundation (Seriate), in collaboration with Angelo Bonaguro, Adriano Dell’Asta, and Marta Dell’Asta
The Soviet Union was a country upheld by inflexible laws intended to better man and perfect society. But in reality, these laws were against man, paralyzing his consciousness, taking away his sense of responsibility, and forbidding him the use of freedom. In this country, an Orthodox priest, Fr. Aleksandr Men’, followed another Law that freed him from external conditioning: following Christ in everything, seeing His presence in everything.
He was sustained by the certain faith that the greatness of human reason lies in learning to discern the traces of this Presence, which alone can satisfy man’s thirst for happiness and the Infinite: for this reason, he was a man who was fully alive and joyful. This was what made him fascinating in the eyes of thousands–even millions–of people who converted through his witness. He was killed because of this in 1990.

>> Toribio Alfonso de
Mogrovejo (1538-1606):
Identity and multiculturality
in Latin America
Organized by Andrea Aziani, José Antonio Benito Rodríguez, Gian Battista Bolis, Giovanni Paccosi, Giancorrado Peluso, Francesco Pini, and Luis Andrés Villacorta Santamato
This exhibit focuses on the extraordinary figure of Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo (born in Majorca, Spain, in 1538; died in Zaña, Perù, in 1606), the second bishop of Lima and patron of the bishops of Latin America. The Inca Empire had been conquered fifty years before, the Spanish viceroyalty of Peru had been consolidated, and the evangelization of the native peoples was in full progress. Toribio “did not waste his years”–he set to work building the Church.

Organized by Riccardo Bonacina and Giuseppe Frangi, in collaboration with Davide Cestari, Maurizio Crippa, Gisella Corsico, and Renato Farina; coordinated by Alberto Savorana; visuals by Antonio Syxty; work with actors coordinated by Emanuele Banterle; technical direction by Collarino&Morandi

This is a contribution to further explore the theme of the Meeting 2006–not an exhibit, but a journey; not a show, but an “event” that makes its way through three 15-minute videos, guided by a reader, Virgil. Performed in three rooms and centered on the three videos, the itinerary draws from the imagining suggested by Fr. Giussani at the beginning of the tenth chapter of The Religious Sense: suppose you were to emerge from your mother’s womb with the consciousness of an adult, and imagine your sudden, but fully conscious, impact with the world.
The three sections run through the itinerary that this “birth” generates in the consciousness. The first stage focuses on the wonder at things, the objectivity and splendor of the world. The second stage touches the first question to arise before this spectacle of awareness in front of something: Who made it? Where did it originate? The third stage shows the arrival at the “I”: the first consciousness that the “I” has of itself is that of being a “given,” of issuing from a mysterious “You.” The existence of this supreme unknown (the mysterious “X” described by Fr. Giussani), upon which everything depends, is the apex of reason. The third video concludes with a “vanishing point” that presses beyond: the man who lives reality intensely arrives at the hypothesis of revelation. Reason “culminates in the sigh and the presentiment that this Infinite be manifested.”
The three frames are built on the foundation of the tenth chapter of The Religious Sense; Franco Branciaroli reads passages from the book, accompanied by images and music drawn from works of great artists. Each frame is interpolated by readings from the Bible and authors loved by Fr. Giussani (Leopardi, Ada Negri, Eliot, and Rebora), which help to explain the itinerary and deepen it. Finally, there are three clips from filmed conversations with Fr. Giussani.