1.28.2009

Beduzzi in Brno


Grand Staircase and Entrance Hall of Kinsky Palace, Vienna, Austria

Only in Central Europe and Stockholm do the solander boxes burst with designs envisioning a totalized interior decoration, where the post-Berninesque unity of painting, sculpture, and architecture thrives on paper, as in life. Earlier this week, Moravian Gallery in Brno, Czech Republic, emptied its solanders to mount Antonio Maria Beduzzi: The Bolognese Decorator and Austrian Aristocracy. The exhibition centers on sketches, finished drawings, and various invenzione of the expatriate interior decorator, who was especially active in Moravia. Curator Zdeněk Kazlepka frames the work in the context of Austrian aristocratic patronage, with particular focus on Beduzzi’s work for the Liechtenstein family.

Beduzzi, like Nicodemus Tessin the Elder, enjoyed the luck of living in the age when his occupation’s reputation as a fine art reached its zenith. And yet, the artist lost the chance to realize his most ambitious plans. Austrian architect Johann Lucas Hildebrandt, not Beduzzi, won the commission to build the latter’s design for the staircase at Palais Kinsky in Vienna. Antonio Maria Beduzzi contributes to our picture of the artist by presenting his unadulterated visions, and even in Moravia, it’s a rare sight indeed.

Link to the Exhibition Page

The Specifics:

Antonio Maria Beduzzi: The Bolognese Decorator and Austrian Aristocracy
23 January 2009- 7 June 2009

The Moravian Gallery
Governor’s Palace (Kabinet)
Moravské náměstí 1a
Brno, Czech Republic

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