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Exhibitions also have their anniversaries. Like that of Andy Warhol, first hosted in Italy by Ferrara in 1975. To celebrate the 50th anniversary (plus a few months) of that exhibition, which welcomed Warhol arriving from New York City for the opening, and also Liza Minnelli, who arrived the following day and stayed in the city for a few days with him after visiting the show. The artist had already achieved significant fame (he arrived in Italy on a private plane lent by Gianni Agnelli), but pop art was still relegated to the margins. It was precisely the Ferrara exhibition that helped legitimize it, although it also sparked controversy, particularly over the photographs of Black drag performers that filled an entire room. Those photographs are on show again in the revived exhibition Ladies and Gentlemen, which runs until July 19th at the Palazzo dei Diamanti. Fifty years later, even that sense of transgression has been absorbed and reinterpreted; what remains is the artistic creation itself, stripped of its aura of rebellion and disobedience.
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