Davide Benati. Encantadas

Davide Benati
Encantadas

Palazzo da Mosto, 7 December 2024 – 2 March 2025

Thursday and Friday: 10-13 and 15-19
Saturday, Sunday: 10-19
SPECIAL OPENINGS
26 December, 2 and 6 January: 10-19
1 January: 15-19
CLOSED on 25 December
Last admission half an hour before closing time

The exhibition traces an artistic adventure that has spanned fifty years, through a selection of historical works as well as numerous previously unseen ones, outlining an ongoing research approach rooted in the 1980s and which continues to this day with renewed impetus and determination.

After exhibitions at the Musei Civici (1992) and Palazzo Magnani (2003), the artist returns to exhibit in his hometown with a new project, titled Encandatas, after the painting series of the same name, created over recent years.

“I have chosen works from various stages of my career for Palazzo da Mosto. Many were painted in my new studio in the city, while others are here on loan from public and private collections, including ones never exhibited before or only exhibited long ago in Italian or even only foreign galleries. They are all large-format works, well suited to the Palazzo’s majestic and enchanting spaces,” says Davide Benati.

The solo exhibition at Palazzo da Mosto opens with his production from the early 1980s, which made Benati famous and formed the foundation for his later work: large-format watercolours on Nepalese paper with a refined sensitivity, ethereal images that couple East and West, dream and reality. The exhibition then hosts a selection of works produced between the 1990s and the start of the new millennium: largescale works in which the practice of the diptych and triptych takes on a leading role.

The exhibition path, which features some fifty works from public and private collections as well as from the artist’s own studio, concludes with a series of large, previously unseen triptychs, testifying to the continuity of Benati’s inspiration and his extraordinary use of light and colour.

The exhibition is further enhanced by a number of paper compositions and travel notebooks, some of which were exhibited in 2024 at the Biennale Disegno Rimini: private notes in which the studies for the large paintings on display are condensed in only a few inches of paper and with only a few drops of watercolour or a few pencil marks.

Biography

Born in Reggio Emilia in 1949, Davide Benati attended art school in Modena and later the Brera Academy in Milan, where he would later be given the chairs of Anatomy and Painting.
His debut solo exhibition was in 1972 at Il Giorno Gallery in Milan. He went on to exhibit extensively as early as the 1970s, a time of intense research and experimentation, further enriched in the 1980s with solo shows and his participation in group exhibitions of particular importance and prestige, including international ones. In 1982 he was invited to the Venice
Biennale (in the Aperto 82 section), where he would return in 1990 with a solo exhibition. In 1986 he was invited to the Quadriennale in Rome, while anthological public exhibitions of his work were held in 1989 at the Galleria Civica in Modena (with a story in the catalogue by Antonio Tabucchi) and in 1992 at the Musei Civici in Reggio Emilia (with an catalogue essay by Luciano Caramel).
He took part in a long series of major group exhibitions (Anni Ottanta in Bologna and the 3 rd International Triennial at the Kunsthalle in Nuremberg in 1985; Dopo il Concettuale in Trento and Itineraries of Contemporary Art in Lisbon in 1986, as well as the International Biennial in Cairo in 1995), and solo exhibitions in private galleries both in Italy and abroad (Antwerp, Stockholm, Hamburg, Paris, Zurich and New York).
His works may be found in the collections of Banca Intesa San Paolo – Gallerie d’Italia in Milan and UniCredit Banca. From 2005 to 2015, he worked with the Marlborough Gallery (Montecarlo venue), which permanently placed him among the upper echelons of international collecting. In 2018, he exhibited in Milan at the Luca Tommasi Arte Contemporanea Gallery and at the FAR in Rimini as part of the Biennale del Disegno Europeo.
He has had numerous exhibitions over recent years in both public and private spaces: Pagine, his first solo show at the OTTO Gallery in Bologna, while Arpabirmana is the name of his exhibition at the Biennale del Disegno Europeo 2024.
He lives and works in Reggio Emilia.

CATALOGUE

curated by Walter Guadagnini with Silvia Cavalchi
28 x 24 cm
144 pages, 90 immages
Cimorelli editore
30 €

Tickets
Buy your ticket online or at the ticket office of Palazzo da Mosto

Full rate 12 €

Reduced 10 €

Students (19-26 years old) 8 €

Kids (6-18 years old) 5 €

Families 14-32 €

Concessions: over 65, people with disabilities, groups of at least 10 people, membership card affiliated institutions, Palazzo Magnani Foundation exhibition ticket holders, Card Cultura Bologna, YoungER card, Frecciarossa, Frecciargento and Frecciabianca ticket holders with Parma, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia and Reggio Emilia AV as destination and/or origin

Students: students from 19 to 26 years old with a university card

Free admission: carers of people with disabilities, children under 6 years-old, members of Fondazione Palazzo Magnani, press-accreditated journalists, members of Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Palazzo Strozzi and Camera, ICOM members

Family tickets (to be purchased only at the ticket office of Chiostri di San Pietro) :
1 adult + 1 kid 14 €
1 adult + 2 kids 18 €
2 adults + 1 kid 24 €
2 adults + 2 kids 28 €
2 adults + 3 kids 32 €