Panorama | Valentina Diena

Vittorio Sgarbi, June 26, 2024

“The award arrives at the Stadtgalerie in Kiel, Germany, for a historic Italian artist, for his long activity as a rigorous architect and designer, which has found agreement among the jurors of an award related to young talents, the VAF of the Stiftung Foundation: I am referring to Marcello Morandini, a standout among many young artists, one of whom is just 24 years old, who are competing in the spacious galleries.

At the same time, it is important to honor an Italian friend, a German more Italian than an Italian, Volker Feierabend, who lives in Milan, born in Berlin, and who celebrates Italian art, also in dialogue with great German art, in the place where the museum I preside over is located and which is the home of the works he has collected: the MART in Rovereto.

The reflections I have in front of these young artists establish an innate tradition of which Italy is the heart, because Italian art is at the center of the world in relation to both French and Spanish art, as well as American art.

In this context, it is interesting to observe the research of Valentina Diena, who, unable to avoid comparison with Pop Art, like all Italian artists who seem suddenly overwhelmed by this popular, consumerist but also capitalistic critique, finds her own original path.

Valentina proposes a relationship with Pop Art through drawing, a drawn Pop Art. This is certainly another journey that connects the past to the present: in the Italian tradition, drawing is the key through which the world is understood, through reason and thought.

In the Tuscan civilization, from Giotto to Botticelli, drawing is measure and order. Reducing Pop Art to the order of reason is certainly the insight of Valentina Diena.