Giorgio Napolitano, president of the Republic of Italy, visited the Museum of Art at Seoul National University on September 15th for the opening ceremony of the exhibition ‘The Double Dream of Art: 2RC -- Between the Artist and the Artificer.’

The exhibition is sponsored by the Italian Trade Commission in cooperation with the Italian Embassy and Italian Cultural Institute and displays 121 works by leading artists from the celebrated printmaking studio 2RC.

Napolitano was guided by President LEE Jang-Moo of Seoul National University into the opening ceremony where he delivered his congratulatory address and expressed the significance the visit held for him. “It was especially important to me to pay a visit to Seoul National University, the most important and prestigious university in Korea, since I am well aware of the central role played by education and culture in the Korean tradition and how these are two founding values of the present model for social and economic development.” Napolitano also stated that ‘The Double Dream of Art’ would give “the Korean public the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Italian contemporary culture.”

2RC is an atelier founded in 1959 by Valter and Eleonora Rossi, students at the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, with their cousin Franco Cioppi under the strong belief that printmaking in itself was a genre of art equal to sculpture and painting. The name 2RC comes from the last names of its founders. Prints by noted artists have been produced by the skilled members of this studio situated in Rome for the past five decades.

Prints on display at the current exhibition curated by Achille Bonito Oliva include works by Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Lucio Fontana, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, and Julian Schnabel. The exhibition reflects the evolution of Italian printmaking since the 1960s.

CHEONG Hyung-Min, director of the Museum of Art at Seoul National University cited, “2RC has always demonstrated distinguished skills and up-to-date facilities. The atelier did not respond passively to the requests of the artists, but acted as a pioneer of modern printmaking art with its innovative techniques and excellent cooperation. If it had not been for 2RC, great masters of art would not have engaged in printmaking.”

The exhibition will continue until October 29th. Along with the prints, the Museum of Art itself, which was designed by world-renown architect Rem Koolhaas, is also a masterpiece worthy of attention.

September 30, 2009
By OH Soo Yeon, SNU English Editor