On the occasion of the "Antonio Ligabue" exhibition which will open to the public on 25 March at the Aragonese Castle in Conversano, from 1 to 12 March 2023 Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome hosts a completely new comparison between two Self-Portraits by two artists as distant as they are similar by fate and desire for redemption.

“Antonio Ligabue: the Van Gogh with the red motorbike”: this is the title of the article dated 12 March 1961 which appeared in “Epoca” signed by the Italian journalist, essayist and writer Grazia Livi following the memorable exhibition at the Barcaccia in Rome presented by Giancarlo Vigorelli. The Roman exhibition consecrated the work of Antonio Ligabue and conveyed for the first time, beyond the borders of Emilia, the expressionist harshness of the painter from Gualtieri.

Today, on the occasion of the Antonio Ligabue exhibition (which will open to the public on 25 March at the Aragonese Castle in Conversano), from 1 to 12 March, at the exhibition "Van Gogh. Masterpieces from the Kröller-Müller Museum" at Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome, it will be hosted a completely new dialogue between two self-portraits of the two artists, as distant as they are similar in destiny and desire for redemption. A comparison created by Francesco Negri to honor the work done by his father Sergio throughout his life.

It might be difficult to imagine affinities, or even simple points of contact, between two very different authors: if Van Gogh is endowed with a superior spirit that takes him beyond reality and a literary matrix can be found in his art, Ligabue puts the his instinct in front of nature and starts a convulsive and furious dialogue with color.

And it is precisely in the use of color, in the inexorable restlessness that pervades them and in that personal maladaptation that they manage to overcome only by painting that the reasons for the tangency between the two artists must be sought, beyond the pictorial technique and what they have represented on the canvas .