On the occasion of the Sonnabend Collection Mantova exhibition at the restored Palazzo della Ragione museum, Marsilio Arte is publishing the eponymous catalogue, to accurately describe the new exhibition space.

The publication opens with two essays, La tua assenza ci circonda by Mario Codognato and Introduction by Francesco Guzzetti, which define the critical framework of the entire volume. La tua assenza ci circonda portrays a visionary and courageous Ileana Sonnabend, capable of embracing and promoting the most radical languages, from Pop Art to Minimalism. With a blend of personal memory and cultural history, Mario Codognato captures the experimental climate in which artists such as Rauschenberg, Johns, Gilbert & George, Kounellis, Acconci, and Koons worked, demonstrating the gallery as a place of freedom and research. In the Introduction, however, Francesco Guzzetti clearly reconstructs the biographical and professional story of Ileana Sonnabend. Thanks also to the testimonies of Antonio Homem, the portrait emerges of a decisive mediator between the American and European artistic scenes and a key figure in the processes that defined the market and the new languages of the second half of the twentieth century.

The volume reconstructs, through eleven sections, the exhibition that retraces Sonnabend's visionary journey and interests: from the iconic masterpieces of American art by artists such as Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Robert Rauschenberg; to the seminal works of Pop Art, with artists such as Jim Dine, James Rosenquist, and Tom Wesselmann; and to contemporary research in Italy by artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto and Mario Schifano.

The Sonnabend Collection Mantova catalogue is a fundamental tool for reconstructing Ileana Sonnabend's life and vision and the history of art in the second half of the twentieth century in Europe and the United States. A curated, rich, and detailed publication to keep to continue admiring the works of the great artists who populate the collection.

📖The volume can be purchased at the museum's bookshop and from the Marsilio Arte website.