Casa Morra Announces Major Renovation and New Exhibitions in Naples

Key facts

• Fondazione Morra signed a convention with Comune di Napoli for restoration of Palazzo Cassano Ayerbo D’Aragona.
• Palazzo is an 18th-century complex of 4,200 sqm at Salita San Raffaele.
• Renovation includes double access, services, residencies, workshops, and exhibition spaces.
• Excavations in courtyard and wall cleaning will respect previous paint layers.
• Cistern and cellar work will take about seven years.
• Casa Morra inaugurated in October 2016, adding to Museo Nitsch.
• Second year exhibitions feature Julian Beck, Hermann Nitsch, and Shozo Shimamoto.
• Exhibition choices follow a numerological scheme based on the Game of the Goose for a hundred years.
• Quartiere dell'Arte project started in 2004 in Avvocata district.
• Biblioteca-Mediateca degli Archivi Mario Franco is named after the film historian.
• Film series 'Sogni, incubi e deliri' focuses on David Lynch in collaboration with Museo Madre.
• Shozo Shimamoto (1928-2013) was a founder of Gutai; his works include a Buddha with plastic cups.
• Hermann Nitsch (b. 1938) is a Viennese Actionist; his section includes action painting and a performance.
• Julian Beck (1925-1985) was a painter and co-founder of the Living Theatre in 1947 with Judith Malina.
• Beck's paintings attracted Peggy Guggenheim and Jackson Pollock.
• Living Theatre archive is held by the Fondazione.
• Stage designs from 'Il Matusalemme Giallo' (1982) are exhibited.
• Beck acted in Pasolini's 'Edipo Re'.
• Joseph Beuys's 'Difesa della natura' project in Bolognano (1984) involved planting an oak.
• Beuys planted 7,000 oaks in Kassel; his son Wenzel planted the last in 1987.
• Gian Maria Tosatti's '3_Lucifero_archeologia (albero)' from 'Sette Stagioni dello Spirito' is on view.