Corrado Cagli's Complex Identity Explored at CIMA New York

The Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA) in New York presents 'Transatlantic Bridges: Corrado Cagli, 1938-1948', a survey of the Italian artist's work during his exile in the United States. Curated by Raffaele Bedarida, the exhibition features paintings, works on paper, illustrations, photographs, and objects, focusing on the decade when Cagli fled Fascist Italy due to racial laws. Cagli, who was Jewish and homosexual, initially supported Fascism, seeing it as a force for renewal. The show includes early works like 'Il neofita' (1933), which subtly integrates homosexual experience into classical imagery, and a preparatory study for the Zodiac Fountain in Terni. After arriving in New York in 1938, Cagli struggled to find community but later became a key figure in the émigré and gay subculture, opposing both Fascist rhetoric and André Breton's homophobia. He enlisted in the U.S. Army, landed in Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944), and documented the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp. After the war, he returned to New York, collaborating with George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet. In 1948, he moved back to Italy, where he faced controversy over his Fascist past but revitalized cultural ties between Italy and the U.S. The exhibition runs at CIMA, which aims to introduce little-known Italian artists to American audiences.