“In the Mirror of the Kennedy Era” exhibition
CLICK HERE AND DISCOVER THE EXHIBITION. VISIT THE FOUR FLOORS ONLINE>
“In the Mirror of the Kennedy Era“ is the title of the exhibition organized by the Municipality of Gemona, Department of Culture, in collaboration with the Cineteca del Friuli, curated by film historian Sergio M. Grmek Germani, and set up at the Castle of Gemona from November 22, 2023, to September 29, 2024.
The exhibition offers a rich overview of the historical, political, and cultural events of the Kennedy era, through documents, footage, and photographs that allow for a deep immersion into that historical period.
“In the Mirror of the Kennedy Era” does not only consider the time of JFK’s presidency but spans from the era that shaped the world he inherited—from Lincoln and the Civil War to the 20th-century presidencies of Wilson, F.D. Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower—to the subsequent presidencies of Johnson and Nixon, which inherited those themes. The Kennedy era is thus viewed as a focal point of the events we have experienced and continue to experience. In particular, the crucial decade of the 1960s, with its extreme and contradictory vitality, finds in JFK’s presidency and in the figures whose subsequent stories marked its tragic end (especially Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy) a capacity for questioning that is important to recover today.
Why an exhibition on Kennedy in Gemona?
The reason for hosting such a significant exhibition on Kennedy in Gemona is the existence of the Kennedy Fund at the Cineteca del Friuli, the central core of the exhibition, whose origins date back to the childhood of its two founders, Livio Jacob and Piera Patat, who began collecting materials in the 1960s. This collection later became the Kennedy Fund of the Cineteca, which has continued to grow and will continue to do so. Thus, Gemona qualifies as a place of particular sensitivity towards the Kennedy story. Additionally, there is JFK’s visit to Trieste and Gorizia in 1952, when he was still a member of the House of Representatives and was soon to become a senator, along with the beginning of a correspondence with the then-mayor of Trieste, Mario Franzil, who was originally from Udine.
“In the Mirror of the Kennedy Era” inaugurates a three-year project supported by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region for the realization of three major exhibitions by the Municipality of Gemona in collaboration with the Cineteca del Friuli.
Four Floors Rich in History
The exhibition is structured around four main themes—family chronicle, the United States in the world, arts and culture, the mirror of cinema—divided across the four floors of the exhibition space in the former prison of the castle.
Floor 1 – “Family Chronicle” follows the Kennedy story within American history from the 1930s to the late 1960s, featuring photographs, posters, documents, as well as various volumes and magazines from the Kennedy Fund of the Cineteca.
Floor 2 – The section “The United States in the World” addresses American foreign policy in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Congo, Chile, Cuba, USSR, Vietnam…). Among the exhibited materials, along with photographs, posters, and books from the Kennedy Fund, there are also some maps by cartographer Laura Canali, who in 2024 will create one of her renowned “geopoems” dedicated to this project.
Floor 3 – This section, “Arts and Culture,” focuses on literature, theater, visual arts, and music during JFK’s presidency and the integration of the Kennedy aesthetic into the culture of the time, highlighting Jacqueline’s important role.
Floor 4 – The itinerary concludes with “The Mirror of Cinema,” which, through a selection of materials (posters, books, magazines, videos), retraces the history of JFK and his family as represented in American and Italian cinema.
CLICK HERE AND DISCOVER THE EXHIBITION. VISIT THE FOUR FLOORS ONLINE>