It’s so close to a miracle. This is how Corriere della Sera journalist Edoardo Sassi describes how the exhibition, whose curators are Giulia Tulino and him, came to be called “Gino Galli” (1893-1944). The exhibition, “The Rediscovery of a Painter Between Futurism and Return to Order,” which runs from tomorrow until May 6 at the La Sapienza University of Rome’s Mlacthe Laboratory Museum of Contemporary Art. Favorite student of Giacomo Balla among the historical Futurists since 1914, co-editor of the publication “Roma Futurista” (along with Balla, Giuseppe Bottai, and Enrico Rocca), and star of two individual exhibitions at the Casa d’arte Bragaglia in Rome, one of the most significant art galleries at the time.

Despite all of this, Galli remained up until recently a virtually unknown artist, even to the history on Futurism, with the exception of sporadic and frequently inaccurate citations, beginning with the date of his passing (almost everywhere postponed by ten years). “It’s amazing to discover such a significant artist who has slipped collectors’ and academics’ notice. Yet he has been forgotten for a very long time due to a string of coincidences that may not be coincidences “Sassi explains. In over 30 years—and the last two especially diligently—he has conducted a capillary search of Gino Galli’s works, which has now permitted this display, after having addressed it in his degree thesis.

Gino Galli’s problematic brilliance has been “hidden” for a long time since it is full of lights and shadows, evokes images of a promiscuous life, and carries the “mark” of his homosexuality. Sassi tells Adnkronos, “We didn’t want to hide anything about his contradictions. The visitor will find a lot of intriguing works. It is difficult to single out any in particular, but Sassi believes there are two that will fascinate the audience. They are two enormous erotic paintings that portray both male and female auto-eroticism.

The male one is a painting that miraculously survived until today thanks to an over ten-year concealment in a cellar: a portrait of a young man in a black shirt in an explicit gesture of autoeroticism, datable around 1920-1921. And while “the female one had already been more or less cleared through customs, even though it is generally depicted in art in smaller dimensions given the subject,” says Sassi. The curator reveals, “It’s the first time he’s ever been represented, and there’s no shortage of detail.

The exhibition, sponsored by Sapienza University of Rome, attempts to reconstruct Galli’s life: lonely painter, tortured, homosexual, passionate about occultism, probably addicted to morphine, member of Mussolini’s secret police (Ovra), sub-confidant in Bice Pupeschi’s network, spy and lover of the Thing. This is the first exhibition ever dedicated to Galli more than a century after his two personal exhibitions at the Casa d’Art

With the exception of three paintings (one from the Galleria Nazionale of Modern and Contemporary Art and two from the Brescia Museums Foundation) and original documents, about fifty paintings from the pre-futurist era to the 1940s are shown. This represents the rediscovery of a contentious but significant protagonist of 20th century art. All contents are unpublished, with a few rare exceptions. Ilaria Schiaffini, a professor of contemporary art history and the director of the Mlac, is in charge of the scientific coordination for the organization of the show.