Antonio Ligabue - The Swiss Van Gogh - 2 April - 8 September 2019 Media preview: Monday, 1 April 2019, 11am Preview: Monday, 1 April 2019, 6.30pm ...
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Antonio Ligabue – The Swiss Van Gogh 2 April – 8 September 2019 Media preview: Monday, 1 April 2019, 11am Preview: Monday, 1 April 2019, 6.30pm Press Release One hundred years ago, in May 1919, Antonio Ligabue (1899–1965, originally named Anton Costa, and after his adoption Antonio Laccabue), who grew up in Eastern Switzerland, was deported from his native country. After various relocations in the city of St. Gallen and the canton of St. Gallen, the nineteen-year-old was sent “home” from his last residence in Romanshorn in the canton of Thurgau to Gualtieri, Reggio Emilia, a home that had never been his own. Gualtieri was the hometown of his adoptive father Bonfiglio Laccabue, whom he never met, since he was taken away from his birth mother at nine months and put in the care of foster parents. However, Ligabue did not have Swiss citizenship, and although Switzerland was the country of his birth, Gualtieri remained his official hometown. Antonio Ligabue had nothing and no one in Italy. He grew up with Swiss German and did not speak Italian. As a foreigner in Switzerland, he came to Italy, a foreign country to him. Between all these borders, he was always the “other.” Homeless, without connections, and without a sense of direction, he lived in the woods in a hut or a barn—wherever he could find shelter. At the time, no one suspected that he would become a famous artist, despite all the challenges he faced. Today he attracts large audiences in Italy as the “Italian Van Gogh.” In his native Switzerland, however, he is almost unknown. Here he has forever remained a foreigner. For the first time, Antonio Ligabue will now be presented in his lost homeland, and his work will be shown in St. Gallen, where he spent the formative years of his life. One hundred years after his deportation from Switzerland, Ligabue is now being reinterpreted as the “Swiss Van Gogh.”
The exhibition Antonio Ligabue: The Swiss Van Gogh is the beginning of an international
exhibition trilogy at the museum which will focus on to the “other” in art, illuminating the cultural,
sexual and gender-related, and religious facets of this theme. The wide-ranging exhibition project
will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the foundation and the Museum im Lagerhaus.
The participation of Sandro Parmiggiani from Reggio Emilia as co-curator of the exhibition and co-
editor of this publication made it possible to assemble Ligabue’s works in Italy and realize the
exhibition. Sandro Parmiggiani knows Antonio Ligabue’s work like no other and has curated
various exhibitions and published books on the artist.
Renato Martinoni, emeritus professor of Italian modern and contemporary literary and cultural
history at the University of St. Gallen, has long researched Ligabue’s Swiss biography. For the first
time, his contribution to the exhibition and as co-editor of this catalog reveals Antonio Ligabue’s
life in eastern Switzerland, which was previously hidden away in archives.
Antonio Ligabue is usually discussed as a solitary figure, with an emphasis on the uniqueness of
his work. The exhibition at the Museum im Lagerhaus will now present Ligabue within the culture
of his homeland. This includes the tradition of “untrained masters” in peasant painting and a
contextualization of Ligabue’s artistic oeuvre within the region’s culture. Eastern Switzerland in
particular has produced a number of famous practitioners of Naive Art and Art Brut, including
Adolf Dietrich (1877–1957), Hans Krüsi (1920–1995), and Hedi Zuber (1916–1996), whose
biographies and artistic careers show a variety of parallels to Ligabue.
The first German-English publication of Antonio Ligabue, the catalogue “Antonio Ligabue - the
Swiss Van Gogh", is published by Skira to accompany the exhibition.
Programm
Press Preview
Monday 1 April 2019, 11am
With speeches by Monika Jagfeld, museum’s director, Sandro Parmiggiani, co-curator and Renato
Martinoni, University of St. Gallen.
Opening
Monday 1 April 2019, 6.30pm
With speeches by:
Peter Schorer, Foundation’s President
Thomas Scheitlin, Mayor
Fredy Fässler, Senior Civil Servant
Silvio Mignano, Italian Ambassador
Monika Jagfeld, Director Museum im Lagerhaus
Sandro Parmiggiani, Co-Curator
Renato Martinoni, University St. Gallen
Vortrag: Dall’esilio alla patria perduta, da Gualtieri a San Gallo
Tuesday 2 April 2019, 6.30pm
A lecture by Sandro Parmiggiani, Reggio Emilia, Ligabue specialist and co-curator of this
exhibition. This event will take place in Italian.
“A kiss – Antonio Ligabue” (play)
Friday 5 April 2019, 8pm
Saturday 6 April 2019, 7pm
The new play by award-winning Italian playmaker Mario Perrotta.
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Film Screening: Antonio Ligabue – fiction a realtà
Wednesday 24 April 2019, 6pm
A film by Salvatore Nocita (2009), 68 min, shown at the University St. Gallen, Room 09-112 (library
building).
Antonio Ligabue’s years in Switzerland (1899-1919)
Tuesday 7 May 2019, 6.30pm
A lecture by Renato Martinoni, professor emeritus at the University of St. Gallen and Ligabue’s
biographer.
In St. Gallen: on Antonio Ligabue’s trail
Tuesday 21 May 2019, 6pm
Tuesday 2 July 2019, 6pm
A walk through “Little Venice” and the history of Italians in St. Gallen with historian and archivist
Marcel Mayer (with consecutive Italian translation). Meeting point: Bahnhof St. Fiden.
KKK – Kunst Kaffee Kuchen (cake coffee art): Repatriation Then, Deporation Today
Sunday 30 June 2019, 3pm
An explosive topic discussed and illuminated by Police Commander Bruno Zanga, former Head of
the Cantonal Migration Office, and Prorector Lukas Gschwend, Professor of Law, University of St.
Gallen, specialising in minority law.
Öffnungszeiten
Di-Fr 14-18 Uhr
Sa/So/Feiertage 12-17 Uhr
open during Summer holidays
1. August closed
Press Information
Press images as well as a press kit can be found on our website:
www.museumimlagerhaus.ch/service/presse
Anna-Maria Pfab
Kommunikation
Museum im Lagerhaus
anna-maria.pfab@museumimlagerhaus.ch
mit Unterstützung von
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Antonio Ligabue –
der Schweizer Van
Gogh
2 April – 8 September 2019
Press Images
Pressebilder finden Sie unter http://www.museumimlagerhaus.ch/service/presse/
Bitte fordern Sie zum Download das Login an: info@museumimlagerhaus.ch
Antonio Ligabue
Autoritratto con mosche (Self-portrait with flies)
Undated (1956–57)
Oil on fibreboard
32,5 x 25,7cm
Private collection ©
Antonio Ligabue
Autoritratto con moto, cavalletto e paesaggio (Self-
portrait with motorbike, easel and landscape)
Undated (1953–1954)
Oil on fibreboard
63,9 x 104cm
Gustalla (Reggio Emilia), private collection ©
Antonio Ligabue
Caccia grossa (The big hunt)
1929
Oil on plywood
66 x 64cm
Private collection ©
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Antonio Ligabue
Giaguaro con gazzella e serpente (Jaguar with gazelle
and snake)
Undated (1948)
Oil on plywood
45 x 71cm
Private collection ©
Antonio Ligabue
Volpa in fuga (Fleeing fox)
Undated (1948)
Oil on fibreboard
60 x 74cm
Private collection ©
Antonio Ligabue
Leone (Lion)
Undated (1952–1962)
Pencil on paper
45 x 48cm
Santa Vittoria di Gualtieri (Reggio Emilia), Private
collection ©
Antonio Ligabue
Tigre reale (Bengal tiger)
Undated (1941)
China and wax crayons on paper with a header by the
San Lazzaro Psychiatric Hospital of Reggio Emilia
36 x 50cm
Private collection ©
Antonio Ligabue
Gufo con preda (Owl with prey)
Undated (1957–1958)
Bronze
23 x 17 x 24cm
Private collection ©
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Antonio Ligabue
Diligenza con cavalli (Horse stagecoach)
Undated (1959–1960)
Oil on fibreboard
75 x 83cm
Courtesy Galleria Centro Steccata, Parma ©
Antonio Ligabue (1899-1965)
Autoritratto (Self-portrait)
Undated (1940-42)
Oil on wood
25,5x10,5cm
Private collection ©
Antonio Ligabue (1899-1965)
Ritorno dal lavoro con buoi (Return from Field with Oxen)
Undated (1955-56)
Oil on fibreboard
58x87cm
Private collection
Courtesy Galleria Centro Steccata, Parma ©
Antonio Ligabue
Leopardo con serpente (Leopard with snake)
Undated (1955-1956)
Oil on fibreboard
69,5x98cm
Collezioni d’Arte Fondazione Cariparma ©
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