Emiliano Maggi, the exhibition Songs and Spells in Florence

At the Museo Stefano Bardini from 2 December to 13 March 2023 the artist's monograph

Emiliano Maggi returns to Florence after being the protagonist of Florence Art Week with Songs and Spells.

From 2 December to 13 March 2023, the artist's first institutional monographic exhibition arrives in the rooms of the Museo Stefano Bardini. With Songs and Spells, the artist establishes a connection with the Florentine museum's stratification of epochs and styles. More than twenty ceramic sculptures created by Maggi from 2018 to the present day, with different shapes and finishes, and a small series of new paintings, make up an exhibition centred on the theme of metamorphosis where each subject is captured in a moment of transformation. Busts whose features seem about to liquefy or recompose under the effect of a spell, anatomical parts into which animal elements are grafted, but also object-sculptures through which the human presence is evoked like the echo of a song.

Emiliano Maggi al Museo Bardini ph. Leonardo MorfiniEmiliano Maggi al Museo Bardini ph. Leonardo Morfini

"After John Currin, Glenn Brown, Luca Pignatelli, Ali Banisadr and Anj Smith, the Museo Stefano Bardini welcomes the first monographic exhibition in an Italian museum of Emiliano Maggi, one of the most appreciated artists on the national scene," explains Sergio Risaliti, Director of the Museo Novecento. "With this operation, the Museo Novecento continues its activity outside the walls of the former Leopoldine, encouraging a synergic exchange between the city's historical-artistic heritage and contemporary artistic production. In Maggi's works, ancient myths, fables and legends take on new vitality, interweaving in a narrative that generates fantastic, metamorphic creatures with a hybrid nature".

Emiliano Maggi, Butterfly Crown, 2022, Courtesy Operativa Arte, RomaEmiliano Maggi, Untitled (column) 2020, Courtesy Operativa Arte, RomaEmiliano Maggi, Floral Boots, 2020, Courtesy Operativa Arte, Roma

The latest episode of his project for the city - launched last September with the performance Water Spell, which saw the artist sail up the Arno aboard a boat accompanied by the musicians of the Florentine Historical Procession, followed by the creation of the prizes for RINASCIMENTO+, an international award for patronage and collecting contemporary art - the exhibition is presented as an evocative journey through the stratification of epochs, styles and objects within the rooms of the Bardini Museum.