Giacomo Ontano

This work stems from an interest in exploring the works of the architect Carlo Scarpa and how contemporary art may have influenced his architecture. It mainly focuses on Scarpa’s installations for the Venice Biennale, after World War II, when contemporary art found new spaces of dissemination. Carlo Scarpa collaborated for more than 20 years with the Venice Biennale, but it was only in 1948, at the first post-war Biennale, that he made his first experience in the field of painting exhibition. He was nominated to design the exhibitions of a few Italian contemporary artists, a retrospective of Paul Klee and works from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Particularly successful was the retrospective of Paul Klee, where Carlo Scarpa designed a small room to show Klee’s works with an innovative layout. The Klee retrospective represents a fully successful example of how the architect values the artwork. Scarpa demonstrates a great ability to interpret modern art in its essence: with his artistic and cultural training he shows sensitivity in making the senses relate with emotions, perceptions with human intimacy and, ultimately, the viewer with the artwork. The encounter between Scarpa and Klee's works was a long-lasting source of inspiration for the architect.