The art of Federico Fellini in the unpublished drawings preserved by his historical makeup artist Rino Carboni
On April 21st Rome celebrates its Birthday with an exhibition on the memory of Federico Fellini, who has dedicated to the capital his most beautiful films.
“Fantastic Visions” is the exhibition hosted at Ars Perpetua Gallery, with 41 drawings made by the director of “La Dolce Vita” and many other films considered masterpieces of world cinematography. Works were designed by Fellini, who gave them to his historical make-up artist Rino Carboni. His memory is now preserved by his son Adriano, who inherited and now continues the art of his father.
Someone asked him why he designed the characters of his films and Fellini replied: “Why do I take graphic notes of faces, noses, mustaches, ties, handbags, of how people crossed their legs? it‘s a way to begin to look the film in the eyes, to understand how it is, it‘s an attempt to fix something, even something minimal, almost insignificant, but something which seems to me to have to do with the film, secretly speaking of it.” It his a creative process originated when Fellini, still a boy, collaborated as a cartoonist and a humorist with Marc’Aurelio and perhaps even earlier.
The exhibition “Fantastic Visions” offers to the public 41 works given by Federico Fellini to his makeup artist Rino Carboni as models to realize make up and especially those special effects in which Carboni was an ingenious and innovative pioneer.
Fellini’s drawings were his dreams and Carboni, with his craftsmanship, made them concrete and real: they came out from the paper they were made of and they were given the features of the characters of a long series of cult films including: Tre passi nel delirio – ep. Toby Dammit (1968), the first film of Fellini and Carboni together with the special effect of the beheaded Terence Stamp; Fellini Satyricon (1969); Clowns (1970); Roma (1972); Amarcord (1973); Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976); Prova d’orchestra (1979); La città delle donne (1980); E la nave va (1983); Ginger e Fred (1985).
And now Rino’s son, Adriano, has decided to present to the public Fellini’s drawings after they have been preserved by his family for a long time.
“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion for life”. This thought is Fellini’s karma that inspires the exhibition “Fantastic Visions“. And this thought is perfectly shared by Alessandro Scannella, painter, artist and director of the Ars Perpetua Gallery where the exhibition is hosted, in Via dei Coronari 111, Rome. Scannella explains – “I met Adriano Carboni, son of art, make-up artist for film and theatre directors as Sergio Leone and Federico Fellini. He told me about the work of his father, about his harmony with Fellini and also about their drawings produced together in more than twenty years of collaboration. Fellini drew, Carboni made his visions real. Forty-one original drawings, for the most part unpublished, in an exhibition hosted in my gallery, an extraordinary opportunity. “
And from April 21st it will be open to all. The genius of Fellini at the Ars Perpetua Gallery in Rome. An exhibition to be considered absolutely “Felliniana“, according exactly to the meaning of this adjective in the spoken language: opulent, extravagant, dreamlike. Once Fellini said, ironically: “I have always dreamt to be an adjective in the feature“.
“Fantastic Visions”
from April 21, 2018
ARS Perpetua Gallery | Via dei Coronari, 111 | Rome
Free entrance
Facebook event: Fantastic Visions
Facebook site: ARS Perpetua Gallery
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