House of the Mutilated of Genoa - A.N.M.I.G. Foundation, in collaboration with Collezione Santagata and with the patronage of the Office of Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage - Archdiocese of Genoa, presents "Tests of Faith. Antonio Giuseppe Santagata". A careful selection of works (almost entirely unpublished) will allow for an in-depth exploration of the most deeply spiritual production of a great Genoese artist whose name is indissolubly linked to the testimony and transmission of the horrors of wars. The sense of suspension that characterizes the most psychological depictions of conflicts is found in creations that - produced in parallel and at a later age - surprise for the expression of a very personal dimension of Faith, alien to both a time and a space strictly definable.

Rough sacred images, being sketches and drawings for future projects (hence the title of the exhibition), allow us to rediscover the central muscularity in the artist's work, through the lightness of garments and expressions that dialogue more with an impression of the infinite than with the earthly environment. A compromise, a nuance that generates uniqueness and at the same time familiarity, certainly also through the chosen scenes: central both in Catholic culture and in the horizon of public art in Liguria present in spaces of spiritual and physical care (such as the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Guard and the Galliera Hospital).

Not only Liguria, the project allows and promotes the encounter with different religious productions of Santagata, present in their final version in different and relevant Italian cultural contexts. The popularity of the painter and sculptor indeed extended well beyond regional borders, growing in the interval between the two world wars and consolidating, through a renewed expressiveness, during the course of the century; until finding full consecration in the 1980s with the acquisition of "Le Oranti" (1918) by the Vatican Museums - International Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art.

The exhibition, open from December 3 to 13 during the regular opening hours of the venue (or by appointment, subject to availability), supported by the Presidency of the House of the Mutilated of Genoa Guido Vinacci and curated by Matteo Lenuzza, (Curator - House of the Mutilated of Genoa) enriches the connection between the figure of Santagata - himself a war invalid - and A.N.M.I.G., a reality for which (starting from Genoa) he was a reference artist for the entire peninsula. It is in fact the first solo exhibition dedicated to this personality in the spaces of what was (and is) a landmark building for the narrative of his professional and human story.

If the Rooms and the Hall are a constant reminder of Peace, the exhibition questions another and deeper reality, an absolute manifestation of Goodness.