Press release

Title: “The artist Cesare Catania asks everyone to hug each other”

Thursday 17 November at 17:00 Pirelli Palace – via Fabio Filzi 22 – Milan

Milan – The Belvedere Jannacci Space, skyline on the 31st floor of the Pirelli Palace in Milan in via Fabio Filzi 22, suspended between the metropolis and the sky, will be nextgiovedì 17 Novembre, to host the exclusive event organized by Cesare Catania and by the San Babila Association in collaboration with the Council of Lombardy region, with Galleria San Babila and Metaword Technologies.

The event will exhibit about thirty works of art by Cesare Catania including the protagonist of the exhibition entitled “The embrace”, famous work of contemporary oil on canvas art by the painter and sculptor Cesare Catania which mainly welcomes social and cultural themes.

The first version of Cesare Catania’s Embrace is a work made in acrylic on paper in 2015. Subsequently, the author created an oil on canvas painting with the same title in 2016. In this second version (B Version), on display at the Palazzo Pirelli della Regione on November 17, 2022 and already exhibited, among others, at the Istituto Elvetico in Lugano in 2016 and at Museum of the Royal Villa of Monza in 2019, the artist represents the embrace between a man and a woman in the strict sense and between two people of different colors in the broad sense.

“A hug is often worth more than 1000 words … – so he explains Cesare Catania – there are no cold or warm hugs, there are no real or false hugs, there are no hugs of war or peace …. The hug is universal. When two people hug, within whatever culture they do, they want to express only one thing: love. Regardless of their age, their skin color and their cultural diversity. “

This is the meaning that Cesare Catania wants to give to his painting and to the day dedicated entirely to the embrace.

The agenda provides that the artist passes the first part of the day (from 10am to 12.30pm) with those who embrace in the purest and most enchanted way: the kids. In fact, they will be the protagonists of the first part of the event, where colors and imagination will be at the center of a workshop, of an interaction between the little participants and the artist. During the morning the authorities, including the President of the Lombardy Region Attilio Fontana, will pass in the room to “embrace” the beginning of this cultural journey.

“The main message that I want to highlight through my work The embrace is the strength of a common gesture, two people che hug. The symbolic meaning is strengthened by the representation of two figures painted with different colors, indicating the infinite combination that we can find within an embrace. A message against racial and gender discrimination ” – declares the artist Cesare Catania in favor of a virtuous feeling of union and sharing and a simple being together again

During the afternoon, starting at 5pm and until 6.30pm, it skyline will be transformed into a reception room for about sixty selected guests who will be able to appreciate both the works of Cesare Catania on display and the works colored by the children during the morning. The decision to close the agenda at 6.30pm was desired for reasons related to energy saving, a hot and topical issue.

As mentioned, in this event particular attention is given to children. They will in fact color a simplified version of Cesare Catania’s Embrace, a version that will become a multiple work of art and which will take the name of “The embrace of the childrens”. The collective work just completed it will be exhibited during the rest of the day in the same exhibition hall. The same colored works by the children will also come digitized and inserted in the Metaverse of the Belvedere Jannacci space,digital elaboration created for the occasion by Metaword Technologies of which Cesare Catania himself is artistic director. The virtual room as presented will be donated to the Lombardy Region by the San Babila Association. This expressive and exhibition mode will make present and future, physical reality and virtual world dialogue, through a message of brotherhood and peace.

The individual physical works, on the other hand, which as mentioned will be part of a single multiple works of art, will be left to the children and to the Giusti Elementary school in Via Palermo, which has kindly joined the initiative.

The individual physical works, on the other hand, which as mentioned will be part of a single multiple works of art, will be left to the children and to the Giusti Elementary school in Via Palermo, which has kindly joined the initiative.

Alongside the exhibition, a new important solidarity initiative will be announced where Galleria San Babila will support the activities of the Akbaraly Foundation, active since 2008 in Madagascar. The Akbaraly Foundation has developed hospitality and education projects for children and has created 4aWoman, the first integrated project in sub-Saharan Africa for primary and secondary prevention, early diagnosis and management of female cancers. The San Babila Association, which carries out philanthropic activities mainly in the Lombardy region, acts on a non-profit basis, with civic, solidarity and social utility purposes mainly in the artistic and cultural field through new forms of communication such as the metaverse and augmented reality thanks to a Metaword technology partner.