The Nuragic Wave: Art, Craftsmanship, and Design Tested by Prehistory

From March 2nd to July 8th, 2024, the exhibition "The Nuragic Wave: Art, Craftsmanship, and Design Tested by Prehistory," curated by Giuliana Altea, Antonella Camarda, and Luca Cheri, will open at the Tavolara Pavilion in Sassari. The exhibition is organized by the Nivola Foundation, promoted by the Municipality of Sassari in collaboration with the National Archaeological Museum "Giovanni Antonio Sanna" - Regional Museum Pole of Sardinia, the University of Sassari, with the support of the Foundation of Sardinia, Bibanca, and ARS / Shared Art in Sardinia.

The Nuragic Wave explores the influence exerted by Nuragic and pre-Nuragic civilizations on the art and culture of the twentieth and contemporary centuries in Sardinia, examining the reflections of the "Nuragic discourse" in various areas of visual production: from painting and sculpture to architecture, design, and craftsmanship, from audiovisuals to social media and mass culture.

In 1949 and 1950, two exhibitions of Nuragic bronzes, staged at the Bevilacqua La Masa Opera in Venice and at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, brought Sardinian prehistory to the attention of international culture. It marked the culmination of a rediscovery initiated in the nineteenth century by scholars and travelers, then stimulated by excavation campaigns conducted in the first half of the century. The exhibitions of 1949-50, curated by Giovanni Lilliu and Gennaro Pesce, marked a turning point both in archaeological discoveries and in their ideological use. The Nuragic bronzes captured the attention of the public and the press not only because of their historical importance but also and above all for their aesthetic excellence. Furthermore, the discovery in 1951 of the imposing Nuragic palace of Barumini in the south of the island further contributed to elevating the ancient inhabitants of Sardinia as a model for present generations.

The artists and intellectuals of Sardinia in the 1950s found in Nuragic civilization a strong ideological reference, functional to the construction of a new regional identity.

This resulted in a precise iconographic trend, which would last until the 1960s, reinventing itself in the postmodern and contemporary era. The evolution of the theme was influenced by the impact of tourism, the spread of new age cultures, the no global and neo-global movements, the emergence at the scientific level of a renewed attention of scholars also internationally, and at the level of costume the phenomenon of fantasy archaeology.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a dense program of public events and workshops, organized in collaboration with the University of Sassari, as part of the "Tourism and Cultural Heritage" Spoke financed by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.