The Ugo Guidi museum, a small international reality in Forte dei Marmi
Friday, 19 January 2018, 16.00
by Giacomo Mozzi
At Vittoria Apuana, in Matteo Civitali street at number 33 there is a house / museum named after the sculptor Ugo Guidi. This is one of the few museum houses recognized by the Tuscany region and included in the various museum itineraries and in the MIBACT days for culture.
The Gazzetta di Viareggio went to interview the director and son of Ugo Guidi, Vittorio Guidi, who kindly made us visit the museum and explained the exhibitions that are organized inside.
Let's start from the last inauguration made at the museum, how did the "Belle Arti in Procura" exhibition come about and how do you get to the Ugo Guidi Museum?
The exhibition is in progress from January 13 until February 1 at the museum, in its original form was presented in the power of attorney, requested by the prosecutor of Massa. The exhibition was born thanks to a collaboration between the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara and the Prosecutor himself, in fact there is an exhibition of young people of the academy within the power of attorney and this collaboration has expanded to the museum Ugo Guidi. For the second year, we host children selected by an academy professor, while in Massa we are in the fourth year of the event. The museum exhibits Maria Diletta Alessi and Niccolò Fagnini. Saturday at the inauguration there were the mayor of Forte dei Marmi, the prosecutor of Massa and the professor who explained the path of these children and the issues addressed. Piano floor is becoming a fixture of the month of January at the museum Ugo Guidi.
How was the museum born, or rather the museum house?
The museum was built on a conservation of works by the family that held this house exactly as it was when my father, Ugo Guidi, died in 1977. A house that has remained steady over time and being an extraordinary container of works of art. art given that it is the testimony of all the works born here, between the garden and the study of my father, has become an extremely important house as it is inserted in sites nationally and internationally as the "Case museums of Italy" and the "Houses of the memory of Tuscany" and since 2005 we have been urged by the Tuscany region to enter Amico Museo's spring days and with this occasion the province has asked us to enter the museums of the province and also for the region. In 2007 we set up a "Friends of the Museum Ugo Guidi Onlus" association and we started to host other authors' exhibitions. What we have in progress, "Fine Arts in the Prosecutor's Office" is the 134th exhibition we host. Ten years ago the Logos Hotel asked us if it was possible to collaborate and so we expanded our exhibition space by taking advantage of the hotel lobby. We are very satisfied with the great experience we have made and for being able to bring my father's name to many places where artists require us to sponsor.
So in the house museum there are, when there are no other exhibitions, only works by Ugo Guidi?
Yes, they are all works by Ugo Guidi, which are integrated with temporary exhibitions when space is requested. This is important because in the limited space we always give the artist the opportunity to work as he wishes, that is, to set up his works as he wishes, and he can also make transfers to my father's works. It is very interesting to observe the mentality of the artist, some have an extreme respect for the spaces of the works of my father and bring only small works that enrich the environment where they are, others have also brought 50/60 works huge and have invaded the space, distvolgendolo, but being tied to his own exhibition has been granted.
What link did Ugo Guidi have with Forte dei Marmi? Why did you choose to work in Forte dei Marmi?
My father came to Forte dei Marmi in 1940 because he married a fortemarmina, he was born in Montiscendi. He was a pupil of Arturo Dazzi, a trained student because Dazzi chose him as his assistant in Accademia a Carrara, where he taught. Dazzi 's studio was located parallel to the one where the house - museum is now located. My father went to help Dazzi to sketch the marble shapes and to define some details of the stele to Guglielmo Marconi, who is at the EUR in Rome. We lived first, when I was born, in front of the Cap of Franceschi, then fell in love with the area of Vittoria Apuana and decided to buy the land where he built the house in the 50s. The house was born already with the idea of home / atelier with a large garden where he could sculpt and a studio where to welcome people and draw.
Did Ugo Guidi also have working relationships with other cities?
He also had close relations with Florence, Pietrasanta and Carrara. In Pietrasanta all the terracottas in the house - museum have been cooked. A friend of his had a small clay oven and my father went to cook them; he had a friendly relationship with this person, but he had an oven of 40cm in height, so many statues have that height. The moment my father had the need to do larger works, he dissected them, cooked them and then reassembled them in the larger structure. Then in Pietrasanta in the famous Studio Sem the monumental works were realized as "the goalkeeper" who is in Forte dei Marmi, "the footballer" who is in Coverciano and "Cavallo e cavaliere" that instead are in the museum garden. Carrara has always been in the heart of my father, he studied there and then was a teacher at the Academy of fine arts from 1948 until his death. My father was the historical memory of the Academy because Carrara being out of the big tracks has always had a great name linked to marble, but not Rome or Milan has always been a transit point for teachers where they found the free place and then they asked for the transfer to return to the most prestigious locations in the big cities, but mine has always been in Carrara and it was the historical memory of all that was the teaching from 1948 to 1977 on an academic level in sculpture.
What has changed from 1948 to 1977 up to now in teaching?
Well, immediately after the war the number of students could be counted on a hand in spite of the numbers that there are now, just think that only in Carrara there are 150 Chinese students and in fact the next exhibition that we host will be a Chinese girl and a Korean boy.
Then the methods with which it is sculpted have changed, but the base has always remained that of 1948 if one wants to undertake a certain artistic journey.
In spring a retrospective exhibition was held at Ugo Guidi in Florence, do you want to talk about it?
Sure! My father has always had a very close relationship with Florence, because since 1956 he has always premiered all his production in Florence because he was linked to the non-commercial gallery the Indian, it can be said that it was a cultural gallery One hundred drawings are at the Uffizi, a sculptural work also in the Uffizi, one in Palazzo Pitti and last year we were contacted because many of my father's works were interested in religion and on this theme it was made from the first of April to the 15th of June in the crypt of San Lorenzo shows her "the journey of man between art and faith, from Ugo Guidi to Igor Mitoraj", where there was a room reserved for 20 works by my father among drawings and sculptures.
It must have been a great satisfaction!
Yes, both for us as a family and for the work we are carrying out as a museum, a beautiful catalog has also been released, combined with the exhibition that can be consulted in the museum. We have also entered the registered museums of the superintendency of the state thanks to my father's correspondence with the writers of the 1900s and this was also a great satisfaction.
I want to tell you my personal memory, two years after my father's death a major exhibition was held in Seravezza, after the iron bridge on the right there is a structure that belonged to nuns with a large garden. Leonida Repaci, president of the Viareggio award, has made a coach with all the jurors of the prize to take them to see the exhibition and I have the photo with him with a background of a work of my father and he told me: "I this artist does not I knew, I did not know him in life, but he is a great artist ".
To get back to current events, what exhibitions are there for?
Now in February we inaugurate the exhibition of two extremely interesting young people, a Chinese, Hu, who is a photographer, multimedia arts and paints and her boyfriend who is a Korean sculptor, Park, we turn to the Far East, with two patrons the Confucius Institute of Pisa and the Korean Institute of Rome. Our small reality is being projected more and more internationally, already last year around the world we have asked for 95 patrons. Last year we sent, thanks to the University of Nanjing, four artists expensed in everything to do a sort of twinning, the artists were two of Forte dei Marmi, Domenico Monteforte and Agostino Cancogni and two Tuscans, Xhomo, Albanian, but adopted by Florence and Marcello Bertini of Lasta a Signa, so he too near Florence.
Then there are many other exhibitions of both a Belgian and a Russian artist who makes icons for Orthodox churches, where he is trying to get permission to build the first Orthodox church in Forte dei Marmi, given the vast Russian community that It is in the area. And then the prize named after my father, prize Ugo Guidi, where I invite you already from now.
We thank you Vittorio for the availability and for the invitation, we will try not to miss.