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.”
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Antonio Ligabue The Swiss Van Gogh - Museum im Lagerhaus · Film Screening: Antonio Ligabue – fiction a realtà Wednesday 24 April 2019, 6pm A film by Salvatore Nocita (2009), 68
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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.”
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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 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.
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.
A German-English catalogue, with Italian translations, is published by Skira to accompany the
exhibition.
Programm Press Preview Monday 1 April 2019, 11am With speeches by Monika Jagfeld, museum’s director, co-curator Sandro Parmiggiani, 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 [email protected] mit Unterstützung von