Tinissima, Event in Bellazoia for Tina Modotti Day
On 3 December 2019 Tenimenti Civa launches “Tinissima”, a limited edition Sauvignon from the exclusive Vigneto Bellazoia Grand Cru collection, in numbered bottles presented in an elegant box. If the aromas and flavours of this wine could be transformed into colours, we would see a bouquet of flowers dedicated to Tina Modotti.
The launch of “Tinissima” is the first of the three high-level events for Tina Modotti Day (#tinamodottiday) organized to commemorate the photographer in the ninetieth anniversary year of her one-woman exhibition in Mexico City, held in the Library of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México ( UNAM), open to the public from 3 to 14 December 1929.
In this way we aimed to celebrate Friuli’s most famous daughter, dedicating to her a wine nourished by the flavours and aromas of her native land, Friuli, which she left behind in 1913 and never saw again. The Sauvignon of the extraordinary 2017 vintage, grown in the enchanting setting of Bellazoia, was chosen for the breadth of its nuanced nose and richness of flavour in the mouth, achieving heights that are difficult to match.
Tina Modotti Day (#tinamodottiday)
At 11 am in Bellazoia di Povoletto, at the Tenimenti Civa estate, there will be a press conference for the presentation of the “Tinissima” wine, a Sauvignon in 500 numbered bottles.
Afterwards, Paolo Medeossi, journalist at the Messaggero Veneto, will present the book Tina Modotti. La ragazza di Pracchiuso by Gianfranco Ellero, one of the most important biographers of the great photographer. At the end, refreshments will be offered by Civa Tenimenti.
At 3.30 pm in Udine, at the headquarters of the Società Filologica Friulana, at Via Daniele Manin 18, there will be the opening of the exhibition “La Udine di Tina Modotti. This will be followed by a lesson by Gianfranco Ellero and Piero Colussi on “Tina Modotti, photographer”.
At 4.30 pm, again at the Società Filologica Friulana, there will be a screening of the film “The Tiger’s Coat” starring Tina Modotti, curated by the Cineteca del Friuli in Gemona, which will present the subtitled edition in Italian.
At 6 pm, in Udine, in the Proposte d’Arte Soravito gallery in Via Pracchiuso 33, there will be the inauguration of the exhibition “Homage to Tina Modotti. 1929-2019 ”, including works by twenty Friulan artists whose paintings and ceramics evoke the life and works of the great photographer, who was born and lived the first seventeen years of her life here. Catalogue edited by Renza Moreale and award of special presentation boxes of the Pagura di Castions grappa by Zoppola. Jewellery inspired by works by Tina Modotti, created by the Mazzola goldsmith’s workshop in Udine, will also be exhibited. At the end of the Tina Modotti Day, Vin d’honneur Tenimenti Civa di Bellazoia di Povoletto.
The events will be broadcast live on the facebook page of Tenimenti Civa: (11.00am, 3.30pm and 6.00pm) and by means of Instagram stories.
Purchase of the Tinissima box set
The Tinissima Box can be purchased at the winery headquarters, in Bellazoia di Povoletto, or directly from the website www.tenimenticiva.com. With the purchase of the box set, a gift copy of the book “Tina Modotti La ragazza di Pracchiuso”, by Gianfranco Ellero will be included, as long as copies of the first edition last.
The cost of the Tinissima box is €35 + shipping costs: €15.5 for Sardinia, Sicily and Calabria and €11 for the rest of Italy.
The Pracchiuso exhibition
For Tina Modotti
Return to Pracchiuso (by Gianfranco Ellero)
Ninety years ago, at 7.00pm on 3 December 1929, in the Library of the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México), there opened the most important exhibition by Assuntina, a girl from Borgo Pracchiuso in Udine, daughter of a mechanic and a seamstress, who became one of the twentieth century’s great photographers.
Why was, and is, that exhibition, important, despite being neglected by biographers more attracted to Tina’s varied life than to her photographic art?
– Because the images exhibited were the result of a personal choice;
– Because almost all the images exhibited were then admired all over the world, and some became icons. “Wires” appeared in an edition of Beaumont Newhall’s The History of Photography , and was replaced in the next by “Mother and child”. “Workers, Mexico, 1924” was included in the catalogue of the exhibition held in America for the 150th anniversary of Photography, entitled On the Art of Fixing a Shadow. One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography;
– Due to the critical reactions that accompanied and followed it;
– Due to the importance of the exhibition venue;
– Due to the calibre of the speakers who opened and ended it. Muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros spoke of “Mexico’s first revolutionary exhibition”. Baltazar Dromundo, in the newspaper “El Universal” of 16 December 1929, under the title “La nuevaetica y la obra de Tina Modotti”, certainly based on his closing speech of the exhibition, made at the University, wrote (in translation) that “The work by Tina Modotti, as a photographer, is revolutionary in nature, because revolution is a state of mind; in particular, it is a goal rather than a faith, as Max Eastman said. And from the point of view of the social revolution, Tina Modotti’s artistic work has no parallel or antecedent in Mexico. It’s a serious, tenacious, silent and admired work, extracted from the very bosom of the people, from the depths of the native soul and from the spirit of modern things …”. Xavier Villaurrutia, in “Revolucion” in 1929 wrote: “Artist, true artist (…) Tina achieves magnificent plastic expressions, frequent balances between reason, sensitivity and sensuality. By playing with greys, she gives colour to her photographs, harmonizes the surfaces and makes you appreciate real visual scales. And, a rare bird in her species, she is lucky enough to know how to transform a photograph into a small world of eroticism”.
The exhibition, which included 57 works, did not have a title: the name of the artist was enough, as stated in “El Nacional” of 4 December: “La Magnifica Exposición Artistica de Tina Modotti”.
The 1929 show was the largest exhibition by a Friulan artist on the other side of the Atlantic.
Today, 3 December 2019, twenty artists from her Friuli, which she left in 1913 and never saw again, commemorate her with works inspired by her art and the events of her life: they are commemorating her in Borgo Pracchiuso, where she was born and lived as a textile worker, after her stay in Carinthia, from 1905 to her departure for America.
Short biography of Tina Modotti
Tina Modotti was born in Udine in 1896 of poor emigrant Friulan parents. From 12 to 17 she worked in the town as a worker in the silk industry. She emigrated to America (USA) in 1913 to join her father, Giuseppe Saltarini Modotti, and her older sister, Margherita (nicknamed Mercedes), who had been in California for years.
During her adventurous life she became Edward Weston’s lover in Mexico, and it was from him that she learned the art of photography, a tool that in the second half of the 1920s allowed her to express her vision of the world. This is why she is today considered one of the great photographers of the 20th century.
Gianfranco Ellero
Gianfranco Ellero, historian and scholar of photography. Biographer of Tina Modotti, quoted in the main works on the photographer. In 1996, to correct the errors and oversights that appear in sometimes fictionalized biographies, he wrote the book Tina Modotti in Carinzia e in Friuli, which was presented in the same year by the great Amy Conger at the University of San Diego in California in the context of the “Tina Modotti International Conference”. This year the Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Council published Tina Modotti. La ragazza di Pracchiuso.
Essential bibliography
Ellero G., Tina Modotti in Carinzia e in Friuli, Cinemazero, Pordenone 1996.
Ellero G., Tina Modotti. La grande mostra del 1929, catalogue of the Lestans exhibition, Lithostampa,
Pasian di Prato 2019.
Ellero G., Tina Modotti. La ragazza di Pracchiuso, Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia 2019.
Maria Cristina Pugnetti
Communication and marketing manager
Società Agricola Tenimenti Civa
Via Subida, 16
Bellazoia 33040 Povoletto (Udine)
Italy
E-mail: mc.pugnetti@tenimenticiva.com
+39 366 912 7428
E-mail: info@tenimenticiva.com
tel: +39 (0)432 177 0382
www.tenimenticiva.com
SOCIETÀ FILOLOGICA FRIULANA
Via Daniele Manin, 18
33100 Udine
Tel. +39 0432 501598
info@filologicafriulana.it