Forum - Palazzo delle Esposizioni
Via Milano, 15/17, Rome

11 November 6.30 pm
admission free

guest speakers: Carmine Donzelli and Lorenzo Pavolini
introduced by Paola Vassalli

In the context of Expounding Ideas, a cycle of lectures designed to promote reading organized by the Palazzo delle Esposizioni and the Arion Esposizioni bookstore, the Art Booskhelf will be launching Vladimir Radunsky's The Beastly Wardrobe, published by Donzelli to tie in with the The Beastly Wardrobe exhibition hosted in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni's Atelier venue.

The slippers of Babar King of the Elephants, Chuck the Giraffe's tie, Anaconda's wedding gown with its train, the astrakhan livery of the Pigeon porters at the Ritz Hotel in Paris:  if one were to judge by the rare collection belonging to Vladimir, a bizarre globetrotter who flits from Paris to London, from Bolivia to the savannah, and from the Congo to Madras to meet up with his animal friends, one might genuinely believe that animals go around dressed like us humans from head to toe.  Whenever Vladimir comes home from a trip, he brings back an item of clothing which his animal friends have offered him as a gift, or which they have left lying around somewhere (and which he promptly picks up!).  That is why each item in the collection has a history which Vladimir has painstakingly noted down in his little travel log.  There are so many odd things to discover as you leaf through the log... for instance, the fact that the Bolivian jungle is full of rabbit tailors, twelve of whom worked day and night to produce the Anaconda's wedding gown; or that the liveried porters at the Ritz in Paris are merely the former pigeon colonels of the Czar of the All the Russias; or even that Babar's scatterbrained cousin Arthur lost his sailor's hat in the port of Marseilles when he was boarding the steamer for Zanzibar... All you have to do is flip through the notes, looking at Vladimir the collector's photos and sketches, to discover that animals wear clothes just like us.  The game and the make-believe on which Vladimir Radunsky builds his new book is a tribute to the age-old tradition of illustrated books for children involving dressing animals up like humans, a tradition inaugurated by Grandville and honored by many great artists and illustrators.

The text is accompanied by a note from Mikhail Baryshnikov, dancer and a friend to animals

BOOK FILE
TITLE: Vestiario/Bestiario - Abiti per animali dalla collezione di Vladimir Radunsky [The Beastly Wardrobe. clothing for animals from the collection of Vladimir Radunsky]
AUTHOR: Vladimir Radunsky
SERIES: Album di Fiabe e Storie - Fairy Tale and Story Albums
PAGES: 24
PRICE: € 16.00
PUBLICATION DATE: 16 November 2011

And if you want to discover Vladimir Radunsky's book, come meet us and browse through the Art Bookshelf's offerings in the Forum at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni
Twain M., ill. Radunsky V., Consigli alle bambine, Donzelli
Brodskj I., ill. Radunsky V., Discovery, Mondadori
Radunsky V., Le grand bazar, Panama
Raschka C., ill. Radunsky V., Hip Hop Dog, HarperCollins
Radunsky V., The Mighty Asparas, Harcourt / Silver Whistle
Radunsky V, You?, Harcourt
Martin B., ill. Radunsky V., The maestro plays, Henry Holt and Company

guided consultation by reservation only - write us at: scaffaledarte@palaexpo.it