Arte Povera 2011 curated by Germano Celant

Transcription

1 Arte Povera 2011 curated by Germano Celant The exhibition/event entitled Arte povera 2011, curated by Germano Celant, is scheduled to open to the public in September 2011 and last until April 2012; it will be held simultaneously in some of Italy's most important museums and cultural institutions in the cities of Bari, Bergamo, Bologna, Milan, Naples, Rome and Turin. The aim of the initiative, which draws attention to the movement that started in 1967 with the artists Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini and Gilberto Zorio, is to present, both at a national and an international level, the historical and contemporary developments of this specific artistic research, and to do so by distributing the various phases and the individual linguistic expressions in a number of different spaces: from the Castello di Rivoli Museo d Arte Contemporanea di Rivoli (Turin) to the Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna in Rome, from the GAMeC Galleria di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Bergamo to the MADRE Museo d'arte Contemporanea Donnaregina in Naples, from the MAMbo Museo d'arte Moderna in Bologna to the MAXXI Museo Nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo in Rome, and from the Triennale in Milan to the Teatro Margherita in Bari. The whole undertaking projecct because of the breadth of the contents and the number of institutions involved 8 museums and cultural bodies altogether is an outstanding event and can be considered the most significant exhibition project ever organised on a key movement in contemporary Italian art. Within the history of great international exhibitions, what makes this event, characterized by great expository and media-related impact, unique is the fact that it will be held over a period of approximatiely 7 months and will involve different cities; also, it will serve as a way for the national museum network to work together. The event consists of an impressive number of Arte Povera environmental installations, about 250 in all dated from 1967 to 2011, alongside the presentation of an international context witnessed by the selection of 50 works by European and American artists, as well as a corollary of sections dedicated to the languages of photography, video, books and theater, and all spread out over nearly 15,000 square meters, including museum architectures and urban contexts, arranged in a trajectory that links together Northern and Southern Italy, touching on the cities of Turin, Milan, Bergamo, Bologna, Rome, Naples and Bari. In collaboration with each of the museum and institution directors, Eduardo Cicelyn for the MADRE, Giacinto Di Pietrantonio for the GAMeC, Gianfranco Maraniello for the MAMbo, Maria Vittoria Ciarelli for the Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna, Anna Mattirolo for the MAXXI, Beatrice Merz for the Castello di Rivoli Museo d'arte Contemporanea, Davide Rampello for the Triennale, and with the Mayor of Bari, Michele Emiliano, for the Teatro Margherita, the curator of the event Germano Celant has devised an archipelago of exhibitions that assembles a great number of historic as well recent works and aims to represent a journey through time, from 1967 to 2011, set within a variety of architectures and environments, and focusing on both national and international events whose leading figures have been the artists of the Arte Povera movement.

2 Arte povera 2011, which will receive loans from some of the most important museums and foundations both in Italy and abroad, seeks to draw attention to a visual research that was acknowledged, along with Futurism, as an important contribution to international art. The goal of the large scale consideration of Arte Povera is to illustrate the whole trajectory of the movement by way of a system of contemporary and modern art museums in Italy that includes 7 cities, which symbolically represent the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification. An important museum network coordinated and articulated for a single exhibition/event on Arte Povera: a synergy within which each individual museum or institution presents an operative perspective that is both unique and specific, thus reflecting its identity and its collections. As promoters of the event, both the Castello di Rivoli Museo d'arte Contemporanea and the Milan Triennale will be responsible for producing exhibitions concerning international relations as well as an historical overview of the Arte Povera movement, while the other institutions will be involved in a specific presentation for an overall and articulated reading of the entire research. The Castello di Rivoli Museo di Arte Contemporanea will host Arte Povera International, scheduled to open on October 8. In the rooms of the prestigious Savoy residence the historical works made by the leading figures in this movement are compared with an equal number of masterpieces by the artists on the international scene at the time. The international artists were selected on the grounds of meticulous scientific research into the exhibitions held between 1967 and 1972 that witnessed Arte Povera in dialogue with other parallel artistic currents, from Land Art to Conceptual and Body Art. The rooms on both floors of the Castello will thus host independent exhibits for the single members of the Arte Povera movement, and a parallel one with such artists as Vito Acconci, Carl Andre, Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Daniel Buren, Jan Dibbets, Rebecca Horn, Sol LeWitt, Joseph Kosuth, Barry Le Va, Robert Smithson, Keith Sonnier and Andy Warhol. As the city of Milan has never had a major retrospective on Arte Povera, the Triennale was especially chosen for an exhibition scheduled to open on October 24 entitled Arte Povera , covering the entire range of the research, from its birth to its most recent manifestations. Held on two floors of the building designed by Muzio in 1931, the exhibition will be divided into two parts: the first part, devoted to the historical works made from 1967 to about 1975 and that mark the linguistic beginnings of the individual artists, will be housed on the ground floor in the Galleria dell'architettura designed by Gae Aulenti. The second part, hosted in the great open spaces of the first floor of the Palazzo, seeks to document the fluid and spectacular nature of the impressive works realized by the individual artists from 1975 to 2011, and through their dialogue intertwine to create an archipelago of very intense and contrasting moments. Arte Povera 1968, scheduled to open on September 24 at the MAMbo, is an offshoot of the historical exhibition that was held at the Galleria de Foscherari in Bologna in 1968 and of the ensuing critical debate. Apart from some of the works that were on display on that occasion and others that bear witness to the activity at that time, a selection of materials will be presented catalogues, artists' books, posters, invitations and documents made in the late nineteensixties concerning this research and its linguistic contributions. The church of Santa Maria Donnaregina, one of the finest examples of medieval architecture in Naples, and now a part of the MADRE, will set the stage for Arte povera + Azioni povere 1968, and harks back to the international event of the same name that was held at the Arsenali in Amalfi in October The past event will be recalled by way of works and interventions by the artists from within the same historical container, bearing witness to the moment of unbridled creativity that began with the event in Amalfi.

3 In Rome, Arte Povera 2011 consists of different moments that involve the Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna and the MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo. On October 6 at the MAXXI Omaggio all'arte Povera will be presented, including large installations by Kounellis and Zorio to be placed in parallel with a permanent work by Penone situated inside the museum. Within the dialogue between artificial and natural elements, the three works sum up the research that underlies this artistic trajectory, and they liaise with the museum's complex spatial system. After radically reorganizing its collections to celebrate its one hundred years of activity the Galleria Nazionale d'arte moderna will open to the public from December 7 with Arte Povera alla Gnam, an in-depth study of the work of Pino Pascali, including a selection of 20 pieces from the museum's collection, completed by a display of works by Boetti, Fabro, Paolini, Penone, Pistoletto, Kounellis and Zorio. Within the perspective of a future activity that intends to measure itself against the cultural manifestations produced by the network of museums in Italy, the City of Bari has chosen to take part in the great event Arte Povera 2011 by hosting an exhibition in the Teatro Margherita entitled Arte Povera in teatro, scheduled to open on December 15. For this impressive space, the curatorial team has selected a series of emblematic works by the Arte Povera group, works that are meant to relate to a location that has been marked by a devastating fire and is currently being redefined from a functional and cultural standpoint. The works of the individual artists will enter into a dialectic with the as yet unfinished and undefined structure of the building, specifically the atrium, the balconies, the terraces and the stairways. For Arte Povera in città, to be held in Bergamo and coordinated by the GAMeC, the artists' interventions will be added to and integrated with the urban nucleus of the city's historical quarter, thus creating an unexpected perspective in which the monuments, cloisters, towers and gateways to Bergamo Alta will echo with contemporary art. Thanks to the direct involvement of the artists, recent if not completely new works will be presented, conceived specifically for the places chosen, thus offering an intense reading of both the visual language and the environmental and architectural context. In order to document the complexity of the event and its multiple venues Electa will publish a complete catalogue with more than 600 pages including 33 unpublished essays with the contributions of the museum and institution directors involved, critical texts on the artists and on the various poetics of the Arte Povera movement; also included are 580 illustrations that provide a vast and in-depth photographic documentation in regard to the exhibitions as well as the historical context and the recent developments of the individual linguistic contributions. The texts are by: Luca Massimo Barbero, Marcella Beccaria, Germano Celant, Eduardo Cicelyn, Mario Codognato, Ester Coen, Lara Conte, Anna Costantini, Nicholas Cullinan, Mirta d Argenzio, Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, Richard Flood, Claire Gilman, Massimiliano Gioni, Gabriele Guercio, Robert Lumley, Gianfranco Maraniello, Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli, Anna Mattirolo, Thomas McEvilley, Beatrice Merz, Gloria Moure, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Giulio Paolini, Francesca Pola, Maria Teresa Roberto, Didier Semin, Antonella Soldaini, Daniel Soutif, Angelo Trimarco, Giorgio Verzotti, Angela Vettese e Denys Zacharopoulos.

4 Arte Povera The term "Arte Povera" is coined in 1967 by the contemporary art historian Germano Celant to describe the work of a group of artists which includes Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Piero Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini and Gilberto Zorio. The term itself harks back to all the great utopias of the historical avant-gardes on the grounds of the fact that it is neither rigid, nor imposing, and that it is founded on social and cultural, as well as environmental and contextual situations. Spinning off from the experiments carried out by Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri, this research adopts a linguistic strategy in which all expressive and textural hierarchies are abolished. Hence, different processes and techniques are used to create artworks that cover all of the territories of visual communication, with no distinction between energetic and physical, conceptual and concrete values; therefore, such works can range from sculpture to performance, from photography to television. It is an open, non-linear, spherical way of working which draws attention to both the contingent side of reality as well as to its fragmentary, contradictory, pluralistic, wayward and discontinuous aspects. Open to a sort of thinking that tends to be consolidated in mobile and variable processes, the language of Arte Povera is characterized by an interest in the philosophical and concrete use of heterogeneous materials that go from art history to symbolic representation, from the aesthetic of the terrestrial to the dynamics of the celestial, from the aesthetic of the raw material to a preoccupation with what is natural. It hovers between metaphysical discourse and sensorial totality, and ends up using water and stone, fire and electricity, words and ideas and can even include animals and plants, which are especially important because they belong to the world of the primary and the essential. Thanks to its break with the past, this research has made possible the transit from high to low and from full to void, of consciousness, the unconscious, the rough and the soft, the mental and the sensual, all of which embrace everything. If compared with art from Pop to Minimal that suggests a kind of language that is by nature unchanging and perfect, figural and industrial, Arte Povera instead focuses on an iconoclastic and deconstructive stance which takes into account the matters related to existence and moves in relation to a multiplicity of temporal and spatial issues. Linguistic pluralism has characterized its poetics and constituted the cultural magma within which all of the different artists have worked. Defying any definition even today it is impossible to classify it thanks to the innovative and original contribution of its individual members the Arte Povera movement has acquired great relevance, comparable to that of Italian Futurism, on the international contemporary art scene.

5 Arte Povera 2011 curated by Germano Celant promoted by Castello di Rivoli Museo d Arte Contemporanea Milan Triennale Organization and catalogue Electa Exhibition programme September 24 to December 26, 2011 MAMbo Museo d'arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna "Arte povera 1968" curated by Germano Celant and Gianfranco Maraniello press conference and opening: September 23, 2011 October 6, 2011 to January 8, 2012 MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome "Omaggio all'arte Povera" curated by Anna Mattirolo and Luigia Lonardelli press conference and opening: October 6, 2011 October 9, 2011 to February 19, 2012 Castello di Rivoli Museo d'arte Contemporanea, Rivoli "Arte Povera International" curated by Germano Celant and Beatrice Merz press conference and opening: October 8, 2011 October 25, 2011 to January 29, 2012 Triennale di Milano, Milan "Arte Povera " curated by Germano Celant press conference and opening: October 24, 2011 November 11, 2011 MADRE - Museo d'arte contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples "Arte Povera più Azioni Povere 1968" curated by Germano Celant and Eduardo Cicelyn 15 November 2011 GAMeC Galleria d'arte Moderna e Contemporanea Bergamo "Arte povera in città" curated by Germano Celant and Giacinto Di Pietrantonio December 7, 2011 to March 4, 2012 Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna, Rome "Arte Povera alla GNAM" curated by Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli and Massimo Mininni press conference and opening: December 6, 2011 December 15, 2011 to March 11, 2012 Teatro Margherita, Bari "Arte Povera in teatro" curated by Germano Celant and Antonella Soldaini press conference and opening: December 14, 2011 All the openings will take place between September 23 and December 14 and will be announced officially at a later date.

6 Information and communication Because of the complexity of this event, which involves at least five Italian cities and six museums, the schedule is subject to change. Updated and/or further information on Arte povera 2011, as well as on the individual events, will be provided by several press and communications offices. Press Office and General Communications: Electa Monica Brognoli and Ilaria Maggi tel imaggi@mondadori.it Press and Communications Office for the individual events: Castello di Rivoli Museo d'arte Contemporanea, Rivoli Silvano Bertalot media consultant tel cell s.bertalot@castellodirivoli.org Manuela Vasco tel press@castellodirivoli.org Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna, Rome Maria Mercede Ligozzi tel mariamercede.ligozzi@beniculturali.it Laura Campanelli with Merilù Barbaro tel s-gnam.uffstampa@beniculturali.it MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome Beatrice Fabbretti, Annalisa Inzana, Chiara Capponi tel press@fondazionemaxxi.it MAMbo Museo d'arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna Elisa Maria Cerra tel ufficiostampamambo@comune.bologna.it Teatro Margherita, Bari Arianna Nonnis Marzano Tel ufficiostampa@comune.bari.it redazione.portale@comune.bari.it Triennale di Milano, Milan Antonella La Seta, Alice Angossini, Marco Martello tel /205 press@triennale.it