Pixar in Mantua: a Digital Renaissance

“Art challenges Technology. And Technology inspires Art”( John Lasseter).

This is the idea ruling the exhibition about the creative PIXAR talent,  revealing and investigating the making of the highly acclaimed animated films we have come to know so well.

Starting in the mid 1980s, an exceptional and inspiring trio of innovators, John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs, combined their gifts in art, science and business to launch a whole new approach to making 3-D animated films and ended up reshaping the face of filmmaking forever. Pixar Animation Studios was formed in 1986 in California, USA. It combines creative and technical artistry to create original stories in the medium of computer animation. Pixar made history in 1995 with Toy Story, the first fully computer animated feature film.

The exhibition in Palazzo Te features over 500 works by the artists at Pixar Animation Studios, including drawings, paintings, and sculptures that illustrate the creative process and craftsmanship behind Pixar’s wildly successful computer-animated films. The show spans all Pixar’s feature films (Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille ,WALL*E, UP, Toy Story 3, Cars 2) together with all the short films and a preview of Brave, to be released in 2012.

On show also a sunning Zoetrope, showing how animation works.

We are planning a special guided tour to Palazzo Te and the Pixar Exhibition, contact us for information.

Admission Fees
Adult visitors  € 10,00
Visitors over 60, groups of 20 or more people  € 8,00
Visitors 6 to 17 yeas and college students  € 6,00
Mantova Card owners  € 4,50
Primary School classes € 2,50
Secondary and Upper school classes € 4,50

Giorgio Armani Visits Mantua

An “emotionally-conflicted young woman caught in an unsettling love triangle”. This is what the plot of the new Armani’s spot is about. The short film, directed by Luca Guadagnino, sees a blonde heroine pursued through a historic Italian town by two mysterious, Giorgio Armani-clad assailants.

But actually the historic towns are two: although some scenes have been shoot in the “Museo del Violino”,  based in Cremona, the most of the movie has been filmed in Mantua (see here a map of the locations). Watching the movie, you can recognize the Rotunda of St. Lorenzo,  the passing between Piazza Santa Barbara and Piazza Paccagnini, and - most of all - the main Loggia of Palazzo Te.