CORTO MALTESE. VERSO NUOVE ROTTE
Organized by CMS.Cultura, in collaboration with the Municipality of Cagliari – Department of Culture and Entertainment – Civic Museums of Cagliari and CONG-Hugo Pratt Art Properties.
Corto Maltese. Verso nuove rotte.
August 6 – December 4, 2022 (Extended until February 26, 2023)
Palazzo di Città, Cagliari
curated by Patrizia Zanotti
Until 26 February 2023, the Palazzo di Città in Cagliari is hosting the Corto Maltese exhibition.Verso nuove rotte. The public will be able to admire over 200 original works: watercolors, drawings, very rare plates and an original multivision will retrace the journeys of the famous adventurer Corto Maltese, a character born from the internationally recognized genius of Hugo Pratt.
It was 1967 when Corto Maltese made its appearance on Italian newsstands in the pages of Sgt. Kirk magazine with the beginning of the saga Una ballata del mare salato. From that moment the character quickly established himself in the collective imagination as the romantic anti-hero par excellence, gentleman adventurer and sea dog.
The frame of Cagliari and the island is the perfect port to set the imaginary route of nautical adventures towards the southern seas, passing through Africa, up to the North American border. In the liquid worlds of Corto Maltese there is all of Pratt’s imagery, made up of rebels and revolutionaries, seductive women, African deserts and American prairies, full of literary references that were part of his training such as Kenneth Roberts, Fenimore Cooper and James Olivier Curwood.
The exhibition aims to retrace the twentieth century experienced by Pratt and his alter ego Corto in various exhibition sections, accompanied by a graphic animation show to immerse oneself in the stories of the most beloved adventurer. Among these, I mari del sud, a section focused on the sea voyages of the adventurer and Africa, the place where Pratt spent his adolescence.
African landscapes, traditions and culture will give the great cartoonist inspiration for iconic works such as the four episodes of Le Etiopiche; Women, dreamed or actually met, mythical characters from literature or history such as the painter Tamara de Lempicka, the actress Louise Brooks, the mathematician Hypatia, honored by Pratt in magnificent watercolors.
Corto Maltese. Verso nuove rotte brings to Cagliari one of the most loved authors ever in Italy and beyond, still able to speak to all generations through immortal themes: travel and exploration of new frontiers, understood both in a physical and metaphorical sense, adventure and encounters with distant cultures, the relationship with the sea and the love of freedom. In fact, in the Cagliari exhibition it is possible to see a magnificent original watercolor representing a Shardana warrior.
The exhibition is also made possible thanks to the support of the Fondazione di Sardegna and the collaboration of the Navy.
