From April 20th to September 29th, the Gypsotheca Antonio Canova Museum in Possagno hosts the exhibition born from the photographic research project Canova Quattro Tempi by Luigi Spina.

The story, the result of four photographic campaigns carried out year after year, began in 2019 and gave rise to as many publications edited by 5 Continents Editions, accompanied by texts by Vittorio Sgarbi. The third volume recently won the gold medal for best Art book awarded by ICMA - International Editorial-Design & Research Forum. On the occasion of this exhibition, the fourth and final volume of the editorial project is released.

For the exhibition, Luigi Spina has selected 32 large-format black and white photographs, among the most representative of the amorous, mythological, and heroic themes present in the Gypsotheca of Possagno, proposing them in dialogue with Canova's works exhibited in the Gemin Wing of the Gypsotheca itself. The images capture the creative moment of the Artist, the moment when the idea is transformed into form and plaster: the moment when genius is measured against the limits of matter, trying to shape it, modify it, subject it to the desired form.

Each of Spina's four stories leads the gaze through the density of plaster, bringing out every possible detail and posture of the sculptures, the lead nails on the plasters, the reference points, become a code for reading the works. "My intention," says Spina, "is to claim the contemporaneity of the classic, its being transversal in every era."

Spina's interpretations accompany the reference Canova plasters on display. Here are the images of the dancers alongside the Canovian dancer, real and ideal portraits in dialogue with their respective photographs, the Peace and the Magdalene of the Master compared with images of contemporaneity. "These works," announces director Moira Mascotto, "become part of the heritage of the Possagno Museum with the ambition, once the exhibition is over, to give life to new exhibition projects with important national and international museum institutions with which we are already in dialogue. The project will thus become a messenger of the Museum and the Canova genius and, at the same time, will give rise to new virtuous collaborations."