Until July 29

On the occasion of 150 years from the Unification of Italy, Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce Made in Italy, a major exhibition space in its Roman Via Francesco Crispi 16.

Curated by Mario Codognato, the exhibition will trace an original path through the Italian opera of some of the greatest artists of the last 60 years: Georg Baselitz, Jea n Michel Basquiat, Joseph Beuys, Dike Blair, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, Douglas Gordon , Andreas Gursky, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Howard Hodgkin, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Louise Lawler, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, David Smith, Thomas Struth, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner.

The irresistible attraction of the "Beautiful Country" artists against the rest of the world has its roots deep in the past and, as known, he knows the moment of glory at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the era of so-called Grand Tour when artists-English travelers, American, French and Germans crossed the Alps to experience up close the great classical tradition known only from books, the masterpieces of an idealized past, but also the thrill caused by a different lifestyle, and alternatively to what they know at home. That's how, in defiance of the difficulties of travel far from comfortable, artists from anywhere in the wonders of the past and plunge into this mess vitalistic. Italy became the artistic idea and ideal: the exotic Byzantine of Venice, the sensuality of the Florentine Renaissance, the infatuation with the remnants of classical Rome, stun and inspire. And the affair is not interrupted even during the twentieth century, when travel becomes easier, less "extraordinary" and the reach of many. The Italian experience, residence in our turbulent city ol'immersione in pastoral care of our countryside, remains the exceptional step in the career of many leading artists, the golden moment of their vision, the happy conjunction of the beauty of the past with this creative that each represents.

It is indeed surprising to note how more than 300 years since the beginning of this tradition, the Italian experience still remains large enough to emerge again, sometimes repeatedly, in the production of numerous modern and contemporary artists. And even more surprising is to discover that the contemporary is not only the unique historical and artistic wealth, but often the kaleidoscopic variety of Italian life to be a suggestion not to be missed.

Thus, only a few examples in the exhibition, are the masterpieces of art history of all time, Leonardo De Chirico to Caravaggio for Warhol, Duchamp and Sherman, archeology or Lichtenstein, Basquiat, but also 'universality of the landscape for Richter and Gursky, the only female of the fee for Koons and Giacometti, the story or the characters of contemporary culture for Beuys, Serra, and Kelley to be a privileged field of investigation and unexpectedly shared by great artists such heterogeneous between them.

"Italy, or rather the many civilizations that have occurred over the millennia in the cities and territories of what we call Italy for 150 years, are a unique case of artistic and historical continuity, " says curator Mario Codognato. "This characteristic has made it a landmark, attraction to confrontation and visual artists from all over the Western world. Italy has a double identity, is the past and present, archeology and contemporary creativity, coagulates simultaneously the weight of tradition and contradictions of modernity. "

Made in Italy aims to reconstruct a series of works by some leading figures in modern and contemporary personal and creative path that led them, at a specific time in their career, that heritage to confront the universal called Italy.