Pietro Bellasi
who vanished in August 2018, approached the activities of the publishing company in a unique and precious way with his fundamental contribution, which was crucial not only for Magonza, but also for the whole culture of Italy.
Pietro Bellasi graduated from the University of Geneva and was appointed to professorship in Italy. He taught Sociology of Work, General Sociology and Sociology of Art at the Faculties of Political Science and Humanities of the University of Bologna and at the Sorbonne in Paris.
Promoter and collaborator of numerous scientific journals, he organized and curated anthropological-aesthetic exhibitions that marked important stages of an epistemological research on transdisciplinarity that continues to this day. Among these: Viaggio in piccoli mondi: la miniatura, il paese della quarta dimensione (Milan, 1997); I Giacometti: la valle il mondo (Milan and Mannheim, 2000); U.S.A. 1929: lavoro, successo e miseria tra gli anni ruggenti e la grande depressione (Bologna, 2005; Milan, 2009); Un diavolo per capello: arte, acconciature, società (Bologna, 2006); Enigma Helvetia: arte, riti e miti della Svizzera moderna (Lugano, 2008); Corpo, automi, robot: tra arte, scienza e tecnologia (Lugano, 2009-2010); L’infanzia nell’opera di Paul Klee (Aosta, 2011); Pelle di donna: identità e bellezza tra arte e scienza (Milan, 2012).
Bellasi was member of the Scientific Committee of the Antonio Mazzotta Foundation in Milan, he collaborated with the exhibition Segantini. Ritorno a Milano, held at the Palazzo Reale in Milan in 2014, and the more recent Giacometti e l’arcaico at the MAN in Nuoro, in 2015. He dealt with aspects relating to the border environments, history and cultures of the Italian-Swiss Alps, also collaborating with many museums (for example LAC, which he presented with a text in the catalogue for its inaugurating exhibit). He studied, researched and provided original insight into the movements of Dada and Surrealism (Dal nulla al sogno. Dada e Surrealismo dalla Collezione del Museo Boijmans Van Beuningen, Milan, 2018) and published important texts on artists such as Duchamp and Giacometti.
Bellasi was a collaborator of RSI (Swiss radio and television), actively participating in the Swiss cultural debate, providing insights and reflections on habits, customs and traditions of Switzerland. He was President of the publisher Magonza, directed by Alessandro Sarteanesi, for which he wrote essays and ideated projects, also curating exhibitions and art catalogues, including Paul Klee. Mondi animati (MAN, Nuoro, 2015), Carlo Zauli, I Bianchi, Governare il caso, and Violenti Confini (Pinacoteca Comunale di Città di Castello, 2015, 2016, 2017), Francine Mury. Derive di tempo e di memorie (Pinacoteca Comunale di Gaeta, 2017), Burri Fontana Afro Capogrossi. Nuovi orizzonti nell’arte del secondo dopoguerra (Museo Civico Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzona, 2018). He was co-director of the series “le lucciole” (Magonza) which is preparing a new edition of his work Il paesaggio mancante.