Paganin and Fioravanti. Il grido e il canto brings together the works of Giovanni Paganin (Asiago, 1913 - Milan, 1997) and Ilario Fioravanti(Cesena, 1922 - Savignano sul Rubicone, 2012), interpreters of a powerful and expressive sculpture, which focuses on the human figure, sometimes portraying it in a highly dramatic manner.

Far from the avant-garde, the two artists remain faithful to the idea that sculpting is giving form to the body. For Paganin, the body is a powerful symbol, a solitary and conscious plunge into the pain of living, placed beyond time by a rigorous nudity. For Fioravanti, on the other hand, the body is the place of history.

As the very title of the exhibition, Il grido e il canto, highlights, the poetics of the two protagonists are profoundly different; yet it is precisely the differences in subject matter and language that offer a glimpse into the multiple possibilities of figurative sculpture.

This unprecedented pairing is a truly privileged vantage point because - as Marina Pizziolo writes in the catalogue - "it reveals aspects of the two artists that would be difficult to grasp by studying their works separately. Because, as always, it is from contrast, from negation, from the definition of diversity, that the claim to identity emerges".

At the Mart, the exhibition sets the stage for an exciting face-to-face confrontation: on the one hand, Paganin's naked, brutal figures and exaggerated gestures; on the other, Fioravanti's disguise, irony and his more serene, but never superficial gaze.

The exhibition is part of the line of enquiry, strongly desired by President Vittorio Sgarbi, on the ‘forgotten artists of art’: artists who are not as well-known to the general public and wrongly overlooked by the art system, whose value is undeniable and whose rediscovery is a necessary task today.

The exhibition project has been entrusted to Marina Pizziolo and Marisa Zattini, independent curators and profound connoisseurs of the work of the two artists, and is accompanied by a catalogue that includes, in addition to the curators' essays, a valuable contribution by writer Giuseppe Mendicino, who delves into the friendship between Paganin and Mario Rigoni Stern, and a re-published version of the influential conversation between Tonino Guerra and Ilario Fioravanti.