The exhibition Cascella. Beyond time is a project conceived for the exhibition spaces of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Madrid, with a preview at the Italian Embassy in Spain on the occasion of the Festa della Repubblica on 2 June 2025, where Pietro Cascella’s 1961 sculpture Senza titolo was displayed at the Embassy.
The exhibition sets out to celebrate the unique, continuously evolving history of the Cascella family: five generations of Italian artists who, beginning with the founder Basilio Cascella (born in Pescara in 1860), took a leading part in every manifestation of the most advanced and experimental art of the last 150 years. As in the finest Renaissance workshops, where the transmission of knowledge went hand in hand with innovation, the Cascella family was able to interpret and anticipate new languages in every era. Visionary, innovative, avant-garde artists, they expressed themselves in many fields of art: painting, illustration, publishing, ceramics, sculpture, and on to performance, photography and the most advanced research using the latest technologies. The family’s history begins in the second half of the nineteenth century with Basilio Cascella, continuing through his sons Michele and Tommaso Cascella, both painters, and his grandsons Pietro and Andrea Cascella, sculptors of international renown. The more recent generations include Pietro’s children Tommaso Cascella jr, Susanna Cascella and Jacopo Cascella, and then the youngest: the photographic artist Matteo Basilé and the conceptual artist Davide Sebastian, both sons of Tommaso.
The exhibition is organised and supported by the Italian Embassy in Spain and by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Madrid, with the support of the Consiglio Regionale dell’Abruzzo and the coordination of the Casa Abruzzo association, on an organisational and curatorial project by the non-profit association Nuova Artemarea, chaired by Guicciardo Sassoli de’ Bianchi Strozzi, already a permanent presence in the organisation of exhibitions in collaboration with the Italian Embassies in China, Lithuania and Latvia, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Beijing and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in New York.
Catalogue published in collaboration with Treccani, in Italian, Spanish and English.
Organised by:
Italian Embassy in Madrid
Ambassador
Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi
Cultural Counsellor
Teodora Danisi
Head of the Inter-Service Administrative Centre for Spain, Portugal and Andorra
Pietro Maria Paolucci
Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Madrid
Director
Elena Fontanella
Attaché
Susi Baldasseroni
Exhibitions Officer
Alessandra Picone
With the support of:
Consiglio Regionale dell’Abruzzo
President
Lorenzo Sospiri
Promoted by:
Associazione Casa Abruzzo, La Casa degli Abruzzesi in Spagna
President
Maurizio Di Ubaldo
Coordination
Annarita Della Penna (Secretary General and Director of the association Casa Abruzzo, La Casa degli Abruzzesi in Spagna)
Project and exhibition curated by: Guicciardo Sassoli de’ Bianchi Strozzi (President and Scientific Director of the Nuova Artemarea association)
Based on an idea by: Maurizio Di Ubaldo and Teodora Danisi
Reproductions: MUSMA - Museo della Scultura Contemporanea (Matera); Rai Teche, Rome; ASAC - Archivio Storico della Biennale di Venezia; Università degli Studi “G. D’Annunzio”, Chieti-Pescara.
Lenders: Archivio Andrea Cascella (Milan); Private collection (Portofino-Milan; formerly Museo del Parco di Portofino); Collezione e Studio Tommaso Cascella (Bomarzo); Municipality of Pescara – Museo Civico Basilio Cascella (Pescara); Matteo Basilé Studio (Rome); Studio Davide Sebastian (Rome); Studio Jacopo Cascella (Fivizzano); Studio Marco Cascella (Milan); Studio Susanna Cascella (Rome)
Honorary Committee: Massimo Bray (Director General of the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani); Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi (Italian Ambassador to Spain); Maurizio Di Ubaldo (President of Casa Abruzzo, La Casa degli Abruzzesi in Spagna); Elena Fontanella (Director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Madrid); Riccardo Guariglia (Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation); Lorenzo Sospiri (President of the Abruzzo Regional Council)
Scientific Committee: Tommaso Cascella (Accademia Nazionale di San Luca); Marco Maria Cerbo (Head of the Unit for the Coordination of Italian Cultural Institutes – Directorate General for Public and Cultural Diplomacy); Daniele Crippa (former Director of the Museo del Parco di Portofino); Letizia Lizza (Director of the Fondazione Genti d’Abruzzo); Elena Pontiggia (Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera); Guicciardo Sassoli de’ Bianchi Strozzi (President and Scientific Director of the Nuova Artemarea association); Simona Spinella (President of the cultural enterprise Synchronos – curator of the Museo della Scultura Contemporanea di Matera – MUSMA and Casa Ortega)
Organisation, coordination, editing, logistics and legal assistance by the Associazione Nuova Artemarea: Ginevra Cavina Boari (Legal division); Matilda Cribiori (Publishing projects); Ren Jingge (Delegate for relations and exhibition projects)
