I stopped at the MART, on the way back from a recent stay in the Dolomites, specifically to see this exhibit. Having seen the photos and material on Facebook, where I have been following the MART for years, I found the objects interesting but wanted a sense of the layout and the overall show, something I could not get online. I also wondered how the museum dealt with the challenge I pose above – not ‘selling out’. As an art and culture blogger, I have often found it frustrating that my writing remains specific to a relatively small niche, while I see food and fashion bloggers crop up and become famous (some with material of dubious quality, others worthy of their fame). I have always said that it is easier for people to relate to food, since we all eat. Communicating art is more of a challenge, and for most people, art and the visual is not so essential (or they don’t realize it, anyway). So is the answer to this problem to write about – or to exhibit – food and art?

Adrien Rovero - Pasta Sedie 1:20, 2007

Progetto cibo is about the conjunction between design and food, explored through various clever declinations, from food itself as naturally designed, to food being used in design, and design for food. The display of this show is very clever: large white, geometric tables at the center of each room display the food and objects, most of which are not protected by glass, playing on a sense of accessibility that is more subject-appropriate than museumifying the objects in glass cases and pedestals. The walls are painted a contrasting black with white writing and diagrams that are part of the exhibit, even if no artist is credited here. The graphic concept of the show is overall really great. With the only negative being that texts are only in Italian.

Museum display - credit: MART facebook page

Working one’s way through this exhibit is like a discovery in pleasure. The food and objects play on the way that memory triggers an oral response, causing often happy associations or watering mouths. In fact, it would have been wise to eat lunch before seeing the show as I risked drooling on the display.

Cordoleani&Fontana - Leccalecca Bulle, 2007

We start out with a hilarious interpretation of the orange by Bruno Munari in his book Good design, which kicks off the idea that food, in itself, is designed. There’s a section dedicated to bread and its many shapes. Then we see how, especially from the 1950s onwards, certain foods are increasingly engineered; this is visible in the food items themselves as well as a series of patent office records showing drawings for things like the perfect drip-free ice-cream cone. A colourful assortment of candies is laid out in a hypnotically repetitive pattern in which we can pick out tic-tacs, Smarties, Baci and other yummy favourites. This is where I started to get hungry.

Elsa Lambinet - Sweet Play

From designed food we move on to edible objects that serve double purposes, like sugar spoons. And from there towards food and play, objects like chocolate rulers and lego-type blocks. Museum-goers stop to point and share their joy with friends as they figure out how the objects work. It’s a social experience, certainly an exhibit to see in good company.

Mario Trimarchi, Il Tempo della festa, 2012, Courtesy Museo Alessi

Humour plays a big role in food-art, where shape and material are unexpected, producing often beautiful but weird effects, like the jelly St. Paul’s cathedral, below.

Bompas & Parr

The show overall is beautiful and has an appealingly contemporary, designer, and pop aesthetic. Unquestionably it’s an exhibit that has wider appeal than the concurrent show on the aesthetic of the educational reformist, Rudolf Steiner, but in no way does the curator, Beppe Finessi, lower the educational value of the museum here. Quite the contrary, we left having learned a few designers’ names, discovered numerous facts, and looking at food and design in a new way.

Orange peel juicer

I am always attentive to how museums manage their social media, and the MART has always been my number one example from Italy (the competition is sadly not very strong). MART’s communications department has taken advantage of the potential of the web to diffuse images of food and conversation about it to the max. They’ve started a pinterest board and a Tumblr dedicated to the exhibit. On the facebook page, photos, videos and links to press articles receive good interaction. Real world social life is encouraged by a series of events including cooking demonstrations by famous chefs and workshops for kids and adults to make anything from cookies to easter eggs. The museum is alive and well attended, both online and in physical space. And part of that secret, I am convinced, has to do with the food.

Martí Guixé, I-cakes, 2001, photo: Imagekontainer/Knölke

Visitor Information

Progetto Cibo: La forma del gusto
From February 9 to June 2, 2013
Mart Rovereto
Corso Bettini, 43 38068 Rovereto (TN)
www.mart.trento.it
Opening hours: Tues. – Sun. 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Fri. 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.

NOTE – thanks to interaction in the comments below with the museum, here is a really beautiful video of the freehand drawing on the wall by young designers from Housatonic.

Perhaps that’s why Castiglione della Pescaia has ditched the traditional notion of an art gallery and created a space that interacts with both visitors and the environment instead. It’s called the Strada del Contemporaneo and it opened in November 2012.

Whale by Rodolfo Lacquaniti. Photo: Paola Bernardini

For the residents of this coastal Tuscan Maremman city, the museum is a step away from what they’re used to. Castiglione della Pescaia is more than a thousand years old and all its other art galleries display masterpieces of the medieval and Renaissance religious kind.

The first exhibition at the Strada del Contemporaneo is a 20-metre long whale. It’s made entirely from recycled materials and is by local artist Rodolfo Lacquaniti. [Editor’s note: I wrote a long article about Rodolfo for Tuscany Arts some time back, if you wish to read a more in detail analysis of his work.]

Rodolfo is renowned for his recycling. A bio-architect, he created the nearby Giardino Viaggio di Ritorno – a spectacular garden filled with contemporary art installations that are made entirely from the bits and bobs Rodolfo has found.

Photo: Paola Bernardini

The whale takes up the entire exhibition space at the Strada del Contemporaneo. But its breathtaking detail and beautifully sculpted shape is so captivating, you won’t want for any other eye candy. The Balena is all the artistic stimulation you need.

When you visit, don’t be alarmed if you see people climbing into it… When creating this piece, Rodolfo was adamant visitors be like Moby Dick and go inside the belly of the beast to better admire the intricate cohesion of the recycled pieces and their steel frame skeleton.

Inside the whale. Photo: artist

‘Balena’ is the perfect inaugural piece for this exhibition space. Naturally, a sculpture the size of four small cars wouldn’t fit into your traditional white-walled gallery. But the Strada del Contemporaneo takes its name from its surroundings – a peaceful strip of cleared forest just outside the city.

The road was once a route connecting Macchiascandona and Ponti di Badia, but has been long abandoned. In part, this museum endeavours to transform an abandoned space into beautiful tourist attractions. But mostly, it’s a fittingly grand end to the La Città Visible tour that was held throughout the Maremma late last year.

As part of the tour, a handful of towns hosted an exhibition of paintings, some from their own artists and some from out-of-towers. At the end of their turn, the tour would move onto another town, where a whole new set of paintings would be on display.

Rodolfo’s whale is a nod to the museum’s environmental message. The Maremma’s drawcard is its untouched and unspoiled landscape, and recycling is something most residents do religiously.

Beyond this, the Strada del Contemporaneo is, partially, the brainchild of Rodolfo himself. It was his idea to create an outdoor art gallery immersed in the landscape of Castiglione della Pescaia. With a little help from the Provincia di Grosseto and the local city council, he joined forces with three Castiglione architects who hoped to build a monument to modern art. And so the Strada del Contemporaneo was born.

View of Rodolfo's Garden. Photo: Alexandra Korey

The  ‘Balena‘ is the first stop on a path that will eventually connect Rodolfo’s garden with these architects’ dream – the yet-to-be-built Centro di Documentazione per Architettura Contemporanea della Provincia di Grosseto. Along the way, curators will constantly add and change installations to ensure visitors feel like they’re at a new gallery every time.

For now, there is no specific calendar, or even idea, of what’s to come. ‘La Balena’ will remain where she is until the start of summer at least. But chances are whatever joins her will reflect the museum’s perchance for unusual, experimental installations, which are as far removed from the traditional Maremma notion of art as you can get.

The Strada del Contemporaneo is in Castiglione della Pescaia, Provincia di Grosseto. It’s open all the time and is free to visit. For more information, call +39 0564 484323.

Elisa is an Australian journalist who came to Tuscany for a year, fell in love ( how cliché?) and decided to stick around. Not one to keep paradisiacal holiday destinations to herself, she now writes a blog and online travel guide about the infinitely beautiful Tuscan Maremma, so that others can get a taste of la dolce vita.

Cindy Sherman, Bus Riders

Florence’s Gucci Museo is hosting an exhibit of Cindy Sherman’s Early Works. As I stood there at the opening, looking at the small-format black and white photographic series, I had a flashback to first-year university. The two series shown here, Murder Mystery People and Bus Riders, are from 1976, the year Sherman graduated from college at Buffalo State. 1976, while she was experimenting with a photographic concept that would set the stage for her entire career, I was born. Roughly twenty years later, actually in 1994, I was in first year university at York University, and one of the first lessons in that first term of art history was on – you guessed it – Cindy Sherman. Fast forward another roughly twenty years (well, to be precise, 19) and I’m confronted with memories of how I was forced, that first year, to deal with my own sense of identity as an art historian and as a photographer.

The art history course in question was not memorable. I don’t remember the professor’s name, nor many specifics, only that everything she taught had an either feminist or semiotics angle, and neither these nor any other form of theory ever appealed to me (so much that I chose my subsequent universities on their very lack of theoretical instruction). But, for some reason, certain facts about Cindy Sherman stuck in my head. She has always photographed herself, but does not do self portraits. She leaves deliberate traces of the photographic process in her early works, like the cords and shadows we see in the series exhibited here. Her work questions reality, femininity, and the self.

The post-university photographs exhibited at Gucci Museo are textbook illustrations of what I retained from that long-ago lecture. As with almost all of Sherman’s works, the single photo is often nothing spectacular (this is very true of these youthful experiments, while later works are technically much better); significance and value comes from evaluating the work as a whole, that is, the series. Let’s look at these two series, with the words of the curator to guide us. I have selected my favourites and assembled them to give you a sense of their serial nature.

Murder Mystery People, 1976 (reprinted 2000) is a story narrated through stereotypical characters based on an imaginary crime movie. The story is centred on a 1930’s has-been actress who falls in love with the movie’s director. The immediacy of photography conveys the characters with a mixture of delight, cruelty and humour. The initial body of work was storyboarded as a film and the characters were shown as cutouts, which included 82 scenes, hung around the exhibition space like a mini movie.

Bus Riders 1976 (reprinted 2000) was originally created for the first Photo Bus exhibition exhibited on Metro Bus 535. Acting out the typical every day characters found riding a bus, Sherman’s use of detail persuades us to confront and absorb her narrative. By transforming herself with the use of facial expressions and poses she creates an immediate distinction between each character. The link between film (which she studied at college) and performance is not to be underestimated and was crucial in developing her unique working narrative.

A third work is represented in this exhibit with some reprinted stills from a film that Sherman made in her last year of university, shown in its entirety below.

For anyone interested in reviewing Sherman’s entire career, I suggest dedicating an hour to the website of the recent retrospective at the MOMA (Jan-June 2012), where this film was projected.

If Michelangelo was such a great painter that – if you believe Vasari – anyone who came directly after him struggled with an inferiority complex, the same can be said of studying photography any time after Cindy Sherman.  For the faculty at my college, who had come of age with Cindy Sherman, she provided a unit of measure for all contemporary art, and especially for photography. Unfortunately, all first year photography courses include the dreaded “self-portrait” assignment. No undergrad could ever get a high grade in this because any attempt to photograph ourselves in costume and then back it up with theory would fall short of the depth achieved by Sherman in twenty years of this process. (Students photographing themselves nude fared not much better, for other reasons.) Perhaps it was this trauma that made me remember Cindy Sherman all these years.

The temporary exhibit at Gucci Museum is part of a series of small, contemporary shows curated by Francesca Amfitheatrof from the collection of Francois Pinault. Unlike in past exhibits, the small dark space of the ex-chapel has been revealed to have windows onto Piazza della Signoria and has been painted minimalist white. As always, the number of works offered is small, though worth going in to take a long look. As I enjoyed the Paul Fryer exhibit last year, reviewed here, I also recommend going in to see Cindy Sherman – just a few photos, but ones that require quite some time and reflection to digest.

Visitor Information

Cindy Sherman: Early Works
January 20  – June 9 2013
Gucci Museo –  10, Piazza della Signoria – Florence
Opening hours: seven days a week from 10 am to 8 pm
Admission is 6 Euros with 50% of each ticket sale benefitting to help the City of Florence preserve and restore the city’s signature art treasures.
www.guccimuseo.com

With thanks to Yigit and the social media department at Gucci for the invitation to see and review this exhibit.

All photos courtesy of Gucci Museum, used with permission.

I want to reflect on the work itself, briefly, and on its use by the population and impact on the way we might think about the piazza in general, and piazza Santa Croce in particular.

In the piazza, which has been filled with white pebbles that provide a snow-like effect on a grey day, there are huge blocks of marble, some cut and sanded down to a smooth finish, others in a rougher state. These gigantic blocks are laid out in the shape of a cross, but you can’t really understand this unless you see it from above, as in this film shot from a helicopter.

The shape of the cross fits into the visual symbols chosen for Florens by Sergio Risaliti, who also contributed to the curation of the “ostension” (solemn display) of three crosses in the Baptistry and the installation of olive trees in Piazza Duomo. All three installations were present only during the 10 days of Florens. The cross here fits rather obviously in with the piazza itself – Santa Croce – and is intended to be in dialogue with the church. When Paladino was invited to speak on the theme of art and public space during Florens in a roundtable discussion with Risaliti and others, it was suggested that this cross is a contemporary and ephemeral open-air church, the first contemporary church in the historical center of Florence. On that we’ll talk later…

The cross is also a recurring symbol in Paladino’s other works, for example in large works on paper in the Madre museum in Naples, the via Crucis of 2008, about which the museum writes “Memory and quotation, figurative mimesis and a fantastical recreation of reality. Mimmo Paladino’s art sinks into the unconscious of Mediterranean culture, to capture its symbols and legends, left buried beneath the veil of Reason that reduces the world to profits and losses, saints and sinners. His stylized heroes and Don Quixote are mythic simulacra of a nocturnal universe that moves behind, in front of and beyond the usual evident and reassuring social identities.” If that helps you understand Paladino’s symbols better, you are clearly more informed about contemporary art and language than I.

Photo: @elpavon on instagram

Amongst the blocks are shapes and elements found in works by Paladino in other media: empty-looking armless figures, one of which seems to be banging its head against the marble; a multi-faceted geometric star, a circle incised with symbols, birds and shoes, fluttering gold leaf…

Most of the information I can find online refers to these recurring elements as archaic symbols; one critic writes that these symbols “are conceptualized from a basic image, reduced to a fundamental expression, and in the end create an alphabet of simplified and elegant signs.” Although these look as much like symbols as anything I have seen, and most critics refer to them as such, the artist has been quoted specifically as saying “There are no symbols in my works”. I prefer to take this statement as my way out for not being able, for the life of me, to explain what they mean. They are no simple alphabet. One thing is for sure – the symbols, or non-symbols, reflect and frame elements of the church’s facade, indicating a careful consideration of the space by the artist.

What did people think of it?

Ok, this work of art was in the piazza for just over a week. How was it used, and what did people think of it? First off, the critical reception was good. The outspoken critic Philippe Daverio said, in video by ArtTribune, that the work was a bit rhetorical but that it was positive because it created “clamore” – essentially, it makes noise, makes people talk about it, or go out to visit it. The press was also generally positive.

Unquestionably, even in rainy weather, it got people out of the house to take a look. In the many photographs I’ve seen shared on facebook and instagram one thing is very clear – lots of people visited it. In this instagram, @Maraina81, a young archaeologist/blogger, writes that the piazza looks like a painting by Brueghel!

Photo: Marina Lo Blundo

One thing people seemed to like was that this was art made to be touched, climbed upon, even… written on. A photo posted on the facebook page of Florens by photographer Mauro Sani shows kids passing from block to block of marble, asking if this is safe.

Photo: Mauro Sani (www.maurosani.it) posted on Florens facebook page

For others, the sculpture became a training ground for parkour. Is this a respectful treatment of art? I am actually inclined to say “yes,” because parkours is also an art that requires training and sizing up space.

Paladino intended the work to be lived and experienced, and specifically permitted people to leave their signs on it. At the opening ceremony, people were allowed to trace their hands on the marble with chisels; this practise continued with pens and pencils. Unfortunately, people also took this as an opportunity for stupid graffiti – though I note that nobody dared think of spray-painting it, and in one case the graffiti was a poetic statement about art, written in pencil. No guards, no rules, just art open to the good sense of people who had to decide what was allowed, or what was appropriate. So, it’s public art that asks citizens to think about what to do with the public art they’ve been given.

Returning to the interpretation of this work of art by its curator and artist as a contemporary, impermanent and open-air church, I wonder how to resolve this interpretation with the actual use of the piece by the public, which in some cases is more that of a playground and photo backdrop than that of a church.

A man gazes at the art

The cost of an operation like this is high, and a sticky point is the money spent at a time of crisis – many comments I’ve seen around the net asked how much Fondazione Florens spent for this. I can answer: zero. It was sponsored by Fondazione Henraux, a marble company with a history of sponsoring marble art, and although I can’t find it written in the press information, I am quite sure I recall overhearing that the artist himself worked for free. Some might say that Henraux should have instead donated the money to schools or other worthy projects, to which I can only say that private funding of the arts is also necessary – in fact, that was one of the major themes discussed at Florens 2012.

You would think that most people would react positively to this piece, but actually it seems many Florentines hated it. While it was being put up, for example, people who lived or worked near the piazza complained of the noise, as if they were not already used to the noise of drunk people overflowing into the piazza from nearby bars at night, an issue that has plagued this area in the past 10 years. My answer to that is: at least the art, once it’s installed, doesn’t make noise!

Negative comments on an article in the Corriere Fiorentino highlight a lack of understanding of the work, leading one florentine to call it a “troiaio”, an offense which literally means a dirty place (often full of prostitutes). Another commenter refers to it as a marble jumble whose meaning they cannot understand, while yet another suggests it represents the decay of Italy and its political parties. Again in this video, an elderly Florentine woman says that the work is a “disrespect to the piazza, because I simply can’t understand what it is meant to say.” Unquestionably, the meaning of this work is partially up in the air, but one thing it is not is dirty! Is difficulty of understanding to be a barrier between people and contemporary art? Why do some people simply dislike, even hate, things they cannot understand?

Fellow art historian and blogger Jenna Francisco and I hug the art.

Over the course of its installation, numerous people specifically made a trip to Santa Croce to visit the work, as well as to see the crucifixes in the Baptistry, often combining this with lunch and shopping, and snapping a few pictures on the way. At night, the work remained open to the public. It seems to me that the piazza was used in a different way in the past week than throughout most of the year, providing specific attractivity to the center of florence to experience art that is free and interactive. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Italy blogging roundtable: The Piazza

And without further ado, I remind you that the Italy Blogging Roundtable is a monthly thematic appointment on the blogs of four female bloggers who love Italy. You can see these posts on ArtTrav by clicking here. To read what my colleagues wrote about The Piazza this month, please check out:

• Jessica: Italy’s living room
• Gloria: Why children should be allowed to work at Sagre
• Rebecca: The Piazza: Be There and Be in the Square

Tano Pisano is a Sicilian artist (born 1947) who has lived in recent years in Spain. With this latest exhibit in Florence, he explores the motifs and decorative arts found in Palazzo Davanzati.

This is the first time that the historic Palazzo Davanzati plays host to a contemporary artist’s works, which are displayed in the ground floor rooms and courtyard.

It is easy to recognize the influence of the decorative patterns and ceramic arts found around the Palazzo in the newer pieces, charming reinterpretations in various media.

Exhibit information

Tano Pisano – Omaggio al Davanzati – Fiori
Curated by Elena Francalanci
Firenze, Palazzo Davanzati, via di Porta Rossa 13
Until October 31 2012

Opening Hours
Thursday through Tuesday 8.15-13.50, Wednesday 8.15-19.00
Closed: 1st, 3d and 5th Monday, second and 4th Sunday of the month

Ticket cost – 2 euro

Patrick Mimran, Medici billboard, www.mimran.com

The French artist Patrick Mimran, who is currently showing at the Museo Alinari in Florence, has been printing large advertisement-like signs with provocative statements about art for the past decade. Right now, outside the museum, is a sign that says “Today’s rich and powerful collectors are unfortunately not as tasteful as the Medicis”. Grammar aside, I would say that he may be in part right, but that he is missing at least half the story behind Medici (and their contemporaries’) patronage. It is not about taste (which is relative, and a modern construct), but about function, and about how the concept of art and artists has evolved in the past five decades, to the point that we may ask ourselves if the Renaissance model of patronage is at all viable – or desirable – in the 21st century.

As some of you know, I am involved in the promotion of a call for bloggers to be part of a team, with me, at Florens 2012 Cultural and Environmental Heritage Week next November (yeah, you can win a trip to Florence). This means that I spend a lot of time thinking about the connections between culture and economy, since the foundation running this major event is concerned with promoting best practises that demonstrate that culture can generate economy, and hopes to force policy change to help this take place.

We have assigned bloggers a few challenging themes that they are supposed to jam about on their blogs, and the nexus between the arts and economy is one of them. It would not be fair if I did not attempt this myself. We have asked bloggers to reflect on whichever themes are closest to their interests or knowledge, and what came to mind to me was my knowledge of Renaissance art production and patronage and how this differs from the current economic structure of the arts.

I am clearly not able to resolve all the world’s art funding problems in one blog post, but it is worth taking the opportunity to raise some issues, no? Feel free to extend my thoughts by writing essay-length comments below.

Renaissance patron vs. modern collector

Lorenzo de' Medici. He was a good patron, but if you were an artist, would you ally yourself with him now?

I was thinking about what the difference is between say, a patron like Lorenzo de’ Medici and a collector like Francois Pinault when it comes to relationships with artists and how they might benefit. I don’t know what kind of relationship Mr. Pinault establishes with ‘his’ artists, if any. Is he a mentor, does he guarantee any form of return business? I assume that he commissions, and purchases, and leaves the artists to do their thing. Lorenzo de’ Medici, of course, had a different approach, putting young artists like Michelangelo in his ‘garden’ for training, and, as other Renaissance patrons, dictating subject, meaning, and probably execution to a certain extent. As far as I know, there is no contemporary patron with a method similar to the Renaissance model. The closest we get are the ‘good’ collectors.

We can also play down the contrast between past and present by remembering that not all visual or other arts was created and consumed through direct patronage of a single artist. The annals of art history are full of “the master of” this and that, precisely because there were many lesser or workshop artists who produced rather standard items that might, at most, be customized upon the request of the buyer who liked the model but wanted his own face tacked on. The fact that every patrician home in Florence had a Madonna in it dictated a market for standard Madonnas that were sometimes made in gesso, sometimes produced serially, and also often sold secondhand. This Lo Scheggia is one of the better of this type.

Madonna by Lo Scheggia in the Zeri collection, Bologna

But when we speak of Renaissance patronage now, we usually have in mind the single wealthy patron and single genius artist model, so that’s the one I’m contrasting with the modern situation. And I wonder: would we even want (what we think of as) Renaissance patronage now? Contemporary artists and their Renaissance predecessors are two totally different beasts. If he could get a position at court, the Renaissance artist had a full time job and was paid, in some cases, a salary independent of what he produced – like Mantegna in Mantova and Leonardo at the French court.

Now, I don’t know many artists who would want to be tied down like this. Few artists would want to end up having to design stage sets for ephemeral events and paint flattering portraits of ugly patrons. (Those that do are called graphic designers, ha ha!) Perhaps the closest we can get to an updated and useful version of this patrician patronage model nowadays is the artists’ residence – usually underwritten by some private foundation, they provide brief but idyllic situations in which to produce in liberty.

Reasons for patronage then and now

Damien Hirst's shark. Investment art?

The aims of each century of collectors or patrons is also different. In the Renaissance, spending was a sign of magnificenza, which was considered a good thing, and was both about your family’s image and about giving a gift to your city. Pinault, in reality, seems to be thinking along similar lines since he gave back to the world by opening a museum in Venice. In both cases, this spending on the arts reflects well upon the image of he who spends.

Personal spending in large sums now is called conspicuous consumption, and is negative despite it being not that far off from magnificenza. Especially in a crisis atmosphere, spending even by the state is frowned upon.

Mimran – the artist whose quote is illustrated at the top of this post – brings in the factor of taste. What is good taste, anyway? It is the collective western academy-learned sense of beauty, a 19th-century construct. (Chinese taste is different, and they think it is perfectly good taste.) Ed Goldberg tells me that in the Renaissance the closest concept to this might have been judgement (giudizio), a kind of level-headed decision making skill that merchants and bankers had to have in everything.

What makes the Medici’s tastes better than that of collectors now? Nothing. Just history.

What I think might play into this issue of motivation is art as investment (now) vs art as edification and enjoyment (then). We have a few testimonies to conversation in front of works of art (real or imagined) in Cinquecento literature. For example, we know people admired historiated maiolica plates and used them as conversation pieces; the story represented was inscribed often on the backside, intended to be turned over and revealed. I wonder if anyone really enjoys embalmed sharks, or if they just figure a Damian Hirst will have good resale value. The investment in art has come to extremes in the creation of Art Mutual Funds, where you become part owner of some art that a consultant says is worth something. Where is the edification in that? To paraphrase what Ed Goldberg has said about Hirst in an email: “you don’t ever get to hang it over your couch.”

Potential future models

Some givens. It is a given that aritsts (not just visual, but in any of the arts) need funding to work, and it is also a given that a civilized culture is defined by its cultural production. Let’s add to this that the arts are considered a luxury, which means they flourish in situations in which there is disposable income.

We have not seen a whole lot of disposable income in the past ten years, and to say that there have been cuts to the arts would be to state the plainly obvious. Apart from all the problems this causes, it shows a shortsightedness about the potential for the arts to – not just to educate, to edify, to delight but to – make money, plain and simple. To make money and thus to create jobs, to support families, to contribute to the economy.

In Italy, art seems to be taken for granted rather than understood as a resource; it is a burden on the state rather than an opportunity. I don’t just mean that art is an opportunity to sell more tickets or to employ more bored state employees; rather it is a chance to properly preserve, manage and promote in order to educate and generate more cultural production in the largest sense of ‘culture’ beyond just the visual arts.

In the United States, the concept of crowdfunding has taken off, with platforms such as Kickstarter leading the way in terms of number of projects presented, though there are others dedicated more to the arts. An interesting article on ArtLog describes the phenomenon of using Kickstarter to fund contemporary art projects, and I was surprised to see some projects actually earn more than their set goal. While positive for some artists, turning to the crowd means that those projects that have the greatest mass appeal are more likely to get funded and get visibility, which may not be the best thing for culture as a whole.

Not a conclusion

I, of course, have no solution. Do you? If nobody is going to fund the arts, are the arts going to have to change (unrecognizably)? We have yet to find the balance between economically viable arts, artists’ needs, what the public wants, and reasonable quality as judged by the cultural and aesthetic needs of our time.

With HUGE thanks to Hasan Niyazi and Ed Goldberg for their reflections on this material by email – what was a terrible rant is now a slightly more structured one.

If these questions interest you, you can follow the adventures of the Team Florens bloggers and I on twitter with the hashtag #Florens2012, follow @fflorens official account on twitter, and during the event watch it in streaming. And if you have a blog, apply to be part of it all!

Matsui Kosei, Large Jar, Saiyuki , 1981

This show is one of three at Palazzo Pitti this summer under the umbrella “Giappone, Terra di Incanti” (Japan, The Land of Enchantment). The other areas explore Japonism in Tuscany (Modern Art Gallery) and Traditional Japanese art (Musei degli Argenti) from the historic periods. The Elegance of Memory section is in the Palatine Galleries.

Here I present a selection of some of the most interesting pieces you can see if you are headed to the show. Enjoy!

Serizawa Keisuke, Kimono, Japanese Syllabary design, 1961

Kiyomizu Rokubei VI, Vase, Autumn Grass Design, 1970

Nakashima Harumi, WORK-0602, 2006

Takahashi Setsuro, two-fold Screen, Hioka Tsukioka, 1989

In the early 90s I spent a year working at two of Basel’s theaters. These were my first jobs after graduating from Zurich University of the Arts, and whenever I had a free moment I hopped on a train to Zurich. Basel was nice, but far too provincial for a freshly graduated actress like me. Nearly 20 years later, on my yearly visit to Switzerland, I now normally go to Basel, not Zurich. It may have to do with the fact that I’ve outgrown my youth’s arrogant attitude. But mainly, Basel has changed.

Alexander Calder The Tree, 1966 Painted steel, Fondation Beyeler, Photo: T. Dix

Three prime art and design museums have been built in and around Basel in the last two decades. And every year for a few days in June the Swiss city turns into Europe’s main art hub with gallery owners, artists and art collectors flying in from every continent to visit Art Basel – the world’s biggest and most important fair of modern and contemporary art. However, unless you need a new piece for your living room, you may want to visit during one of the 51 weeks of the year that Basel’s splendid museums are a little less busy.

Fondation Beyeler by Renzo Piano – Pathway to bliss

Fondation Beyeler, built by the Italian architect Renzo Piano Photo: Mark Niedermann

Museums are to the art lover, what a church is to the religious. This may be the reason why Ernst and Hilda Beyeler worked closely with Italian star-architect Renzo Piano to create an appropriate home for their important collection of modern and contemporary art and African sculptures. The Beyeler’s didn’t come to riches with chocolate, banking or watch making. The Swiss couple ran one of the world’s most sought after art galleries. Not surprisingly Ernst Beyeler was also co-founder of the Art Basel.

Comfy couches, photo flickr @leonl

Whenever I visit the Fondation Beyeler, I start by taking a seat. Forget usually hard and minimalistic museum benches. In the beautiful room dedicated to Monet’s Water-lily Pond I lounge on a comfortable white sofa and feel like I’ve been invited over for a private viewing. The building, Monet’s masterpiece and the real water lily pond right in front of the glass wall don’t compete but form a perfect circle. Once you’ve sat down in this heavenly space, you’ll want to stay on for the rest of the day. But with Giacometti, Picasso, Warhol and co. just around the corner you better get up again.

Following the concept that a museum is the convergence of art, architecture and nature, a long and narrow winter garden forms part of the building. Generous sofas here too. I have seen people falling asleep on them. No, not because of those museum viruses called exhaustion and boredom. But because of a state called bliss. No need for Zen meditation if you can visit Fondation Beyeler: take in art and architecture, observe the landscape and let yourself be transported to a better world.

Tinguely Museum by Mario Botta – Bring the kids!

During the time that Renzo Piano doodled for the Beyeler’s, world-famous Swiss architect Mario Botta started to lay down the first bricks for a museum dedicated to artist Jean Tinguely (there must have been something in the air in Basel in the mid 90s).

Again art and architecture are equal players. And the surroundings – Basel’s city center – are a main ingredient here too. Interestingly water and museums seem to have a strong link. Recently Alexandra wrote on this blog about the Chagall fountain at the Fondation Maeght, and I just mentioned Fondation Beyeler’s stunning lily pond. At the Tinguely museum the element is at its most natural. Botta’s building is built on the shore of the river Rhine, which divides the city of Basel in two halves. No sofas here to take in the view, but two beautiful chairs by Tinguely’s second wife Niki de Saint-Phalle.

Chairs by Niki de Saint Phalle in the Tinguely museum

Museums in general and art museums in particular work great with kids (as long as you know how to approach museums with kids). However it’s true that some of them are more welcoming to lively youngsters than others. If you worry about Fondation Beyeler’s spotless white sofas in connection with your kids’ shoes –  skip it and head right to the Tinguely museum. The Swiss artist didn’t build his eccentric machine sculptures for children. But they work heaven on them. In fact you may have a hard time getting their foot off the prominent red on and off button.

The red button.

Vitra Campus – World-class architects

A dozen buildings by some of the world’s most admired architects can be visited in a nondescript German town 15 minutes from Basel. No need to book flights to New York, Berlin and London. Take a bus to Weil am Rhein to visit Vitra Campus, a sort of upper class Disneyland for architecture aficionados. Frank Gehry designed Vitra’s Design Museum, Zaha Hadid the factory’s fire station, Tadao Ando the conference center, and on it goes. Even small secondary structures like the bus stop are designed by no lesser than Jasper Morrison and ah yes, the petrol station is by Jean Prouvé.

But what is it all about? If you’re a furniture design lover you already know. In fact you’re probably reading me whilst sitting on a Panton chair. Vitra is the name of a Swiss furniture company, which has superb design written in its genes. In 1981 its production space in Southern Germany burnt down. Watching what came of it, one is tempted to call it a stroke of luck.

The latest add-on to Vitra Campus is Herzog & de Meuron’s VitraHaus, a fabulously ironic take on suburbia’s architecture which serves as generous showroom for the label’s furniture. After years of risking my relationship by forcing my partner to spend entire Sundays at IKEA, we’ve finally found common ground. Shopping at Vitra feels like spending the day at a design hotel. Compared to the Swedes, prices are steep, but once you’ve observed the making of the famous Eames Lounge Chair live at Vitra Campus, you’ll understand why.

Kunstmuseum Basel – a step back in time

If you need a break from modern art and contemporary design, head back into town to visit Basel’s Kunstmuseum. The city’s official fine art museum sports the world’s largest collection of works by the Holbein family (Holbein the Older and Holbein the Younger). I was obviously mistaken in my youth. Basel has had a cosmopolitan approach to the arts long before I, or any of the archistars came to town.

Travel Resources

ART BASEL  every year in June. This year’s dates are June 14-17 2012.

FONDATION BEYLER  Open every day, 10am– 6pm, Wednesdays 10 am – 8pm. The museum is open on all public holidays. Special opening times during Art Basel.

MUSEUM TINGUELY Tuesday to Sunday 11am – 6pm, special opening times on public holidays.

VITRA CAMPUS daily from 10am – 6pm; closed: Dec 24/25/31 and Jan 1^st.

KUNSTMUSEUM BASEL Tuesday to Sunday 10am – 6pm.

How to get there: Closest airport is Euroairport, which is great for economic flights from European destinations. For intercontinental flights check out Zurich Airport just over an hour from Basel.

Basel Tourism offers a special deal, combining hotel room booking, public transport ticket and entrance fee to the Fondation Beyeler: see the Fondation Beyeler Package.

Katja Meier, ex-actress gone olive picker gone life coach, lives with her Tuscan native and their two kids next to a splendid olive grove in Southern Tuscany. She co-organizes post-cancer retreats in Italy and spends her spare time writing the Map It Out travel blogs about Southern Tuscany and Montalcino.

Paul Fryer and his work Pieta at Museo Gucci, Florence

It’s not every day that I find myself in a darkened room with someone who counts Damien Hirst amongst his close friends and collaborators. Okay, I was not alone. It was a press conference at the Gucci Museum in Florence for the exhibit “Lo Spirito Vola” (The Spirit Flies) by Paul Fryer.

Sometimes associated with the group “Young British Artists,” Fryer (not so young – none of them are any more) remained somewhat at the fringe of the group, so his work is not overplayed, and still has a fresh touch to it that is currently much appreciated by collectors and art hedge fund managers. Coming somewhat late to the sculpture scene, he made his mark on the alternative art and music scene of Leeds, where he went to study (and drop out) in the 80s, pursuing instead a career as an “electropop singer” (according to his website – I have no idea what that is) and a transvestite DJ. He now lives and works in London. In 2001 he published a book of poetry that was illustrated by Damien Hirst, and he has had 8 solo exhibits, mostly in the UK. There is no wikipedia page dedicated to him. I have to wonder if he purposefully deleted it himself as an artistic act. A video from his past life, in which I believe that’s him mooning the cameraman, can be found on his youtube channel.

Dressed rather somberly, with a calculatedly scruffy beard and carrying a very masculine hat, the transvestite DJ Fryer is long gone. After an introductory tour of the exhibit by curator Francesca Amfitheatrof, the artist enters the dramatically lit room and we make space for him nervously around his works. We’re a handful of (all female) journalists. The artist speaks in English, of course, and Brenda (from The Florentine) and I feel distinctly at an advantage linguistically. An advantage that would allow us to ask quick and smart questions, given the unique opportunity of speaking with the artist. Brenda does a good job with this (and produces a good article in the newspaper that I recommend you read; I won’t repeat what she wrote).

I, on the other hand, find myself tongue tied. There is something very intimidating about asking questions to contemporary artists, at least for me, for I always fear asking something way too obvious that has already been super-covered in the literature and would thus blow my cover as knowing virtually nothing about contemporary art.

The ex-chapel in the Palazzo recently renovated by Gucci is now a contemporary art space with a temporary exhibit that will be renewed once or twice each year thanks to an agreement with the collector Francois Pinault. Two works from this collection, as well as a third from the artist’s private stash, make up this installation. They are Ophelia, Pietà (The Empire Never Ended), and Ecce Homo. These can be described very essentially as a wax figure of the dead Shakespearean character suspended in a tub of resin; a ghastly wax Christ on an electric chair (after crucifixion); and a box with a bird’s nest and an egg of metal in it. Which might not seem like much; thankfully there’s a whole lot of thought and workmanship that went into the three pieces. As the artist spoke, I came to appreciate the works rather more than when I first entered, when I might have thought these pieces were just meant to provoke. Being shown in Italy, religious works will always provoke more than in non-Catholic countries.

Paul Fryer, Pieta. Detail of upper section. Photo: please credit Alexandra Korey

The Pietà may be the most famous piece in the room. It’s actually a multiple, though each 2/3d scale Christ is painstakingly handcrafted. Not an updated story of Christ in which his sacrifice is through electrocution rather than crucifixion, as Fryer is keen to point out, since the wounds of the Passion and Crucifixion are clear. Incredibly real, each hair is applied singly, and the dried blood looks, frankly, real. The artist tells us that the wounds had to be inflicted on the finished wax figure, and that his assistants refused to do it. The version we have in front of us is actually rather more tame than the one made for his friend Damien Hirst, whom Fryer asserts “likes bloody things,” so he went all out on that one.

Detail of feet. Photo: please credit Alexandra Korey

This one was also exhibited in a cathedral (in Gap, France in 2009) where it garnered a goodly amount of controversy that was not intended by the artist nor the Bishop who strongly wanted the work on display over Holy Week. Fryer declared: “Scandalous is not Jesus in the electric chair, but the indifference to his crucifixion.” (source)

Ophelia (White), photo: Paul Fryer

Maybe I felt more at home with Ophelia and all the references that jumped to mind seeing her, for it is here that I gathered enough courage to ask Paul Fryer a question. And he very kindly told me I was off my rocker, no, um, just slightly incorrect in my interpretation. A ghostly white Ophelia floats in the same pose of surrender – hands up and to the side – as Millais’ pre-Raphaelite depiction of the Shakesperean figure, but Fryer’s interpretation is literally (but not figuratively) black and white. A woman with a modern figure, wearing a plain black silk dress, lacks the romantic adornment and drama of the 19th-century versions. The reference here is clear, and the artist confirms this.

Paul Fryer, Ophelia. Detail of installation in Florence, Museo Gucci. Photo: Alexandra Korey

The Renaissance art historian in me can’t help but see an earlier reference, and with it a line of thinking, so I dare ask, or rather comment: “The medium of wax, here in Florence, is easy to associate with the wax anatomies at La Specola, and Ophelia’s passive pose makes me think of that museum’s passive, pearl-adorned ‘Venus’ (complete with removable abdomen); this in turn is related to a whole tradition of anatomical imagery that portrays women, in death, as passively offering themselves up for inspection, and men, by contrast, as heroic.” I even managed to get this out rather eloquently, I thought. Fryer says he’s familiar with the wax anatomies, and influenced by them, but he doesn’t intend Ophelia at all in a negative, anti-feminist way. He sees her as a positive figure, not a victim but a symbol of spiritual acceptance.

Unquestionably the fil-rouge amongst the three works is a Christological one – Ophelia’s upturned palms, Christ’s bloody ones, and the title and material (thorny vines) of the Ecce Homo. They were not designed to be displayed together, but they make sense.

This is Fryer’s first exhibit in Italy and also his first trip to Florence, he tells Brenda and I over lunch in a posh room that overlooks Piazza della Signoria. Amazing to think that he has waited this long to come to such an important art city; he says the time was just right now.

I have to appreciate Gucci Museum’s desire to go beyond the “company/ branding museum” format by offering a contemporary space. I have my doubts, though, about how many people (ie. tourists here to see fashion) will really appreciate it. Florence lacks contemporary art of this caliber, and Gucci has the klout to bring it here. But the museum’s entrance fee of 5 euros is steep if you’ve already seen the Gucci collection (even if the items in it rotate within the themes assigned to the rooms). It’d be nice if they could offer some opportunities for free entrance for locals, or a separate 2 euro ticket to see the contemporary section.

Exhibition Info

Paul Fryer, Lo Spirito Vola
Gucci Museo, Piazza della Signoria, Florence
March 17 to September 3, 2012

Mauro Lovi: Radura

The big window at via Maggio 43r – the antiquarian street – is covered in brown paper, awaiting the unveiling and official opening party of “OTTO, luogo d’arte” that will take place this Wednesday March 16 2011. Is this city and this street of mostly dark and closed galleries ready for a luminous dash of the contemporary? Olivia Toscani Rucellai certainly hopes so. I got to peek inside yesterday and have a chat with the new gallery’s owner.

Olivia has an artistic family background. Her father is photographer Oliviero Toscani. Her mother, Agneta Holst, is the creative spirit behind Megalopoli, the historic art and design studio which opened in Milan in 1978. She convinced a roster of THE most famous contemporary Italian artists – Ettore Sottsass, Enrico Castellani, Giò Pomodoro Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mimmo Paladino and others – to produce objects and furniture for everyday use. These pieces were exhibited at the Salone del Mobile in Milan for over ten years and are now collector’s items.

Megalopoli’s ethic is: keep art alive in everyday life. By opening this new space in Florence, Olivia would like to resume and continue the project begun by her mother, immersing it in the everyday life of our time, incorporating local handicrafts in the production of objects, experimenting with possible synergies between the artists’ projects and the creative capabilities and manual skills of master craftsmen, a unique treasure.

Olivia Toscani and Mauro Lovi

She teamed up with Mauro Lovi, one of the artists involved in the Megalopoli project, whose solo show inaugurates the space and who will also stay on as artistic director. Lovi’s exhibit Radura explores the personal significance of the poplar tree, a tree that he believes is at the root (pun intended) of all trees, and that played a role in his childhood experience. The Italian word “Radura” means “clearing”, that opening in the woods that is light-filled yet comfortably enclosed, and the gallery display is meant to evoke this.

Although the gallery space is small, visitors are absolutely welcome to enter, and the gallerist hopes to also involve school groups who could benefit from interaction with this work in particular (there’s even a pine house with a surprise inside!). An interesting line-up of contemporary artwork and design objects is planned through mid 2012.

Gallery display

Olivia Toscani’s OTTO luogo dell’arte intends to be a reference point and a metaphorical clearing where art lovers, collectors and curious travelers can gather; above all, a laboratory for the production of ideas, projects and objects in which the language of art meets everyday life. A setting for collaborations between artists and the master craftsmen who keep ancient experiences alive, both curious to try new things.

And new things are most welcome in this city that is experiencing a new kind of Renaissance (not the old kind – not a looking back but a step forward). I sincerely wish Olivia well in her activity and hope that it proves fruitful enough not only to be able to offer a wide range of experiences to the public in this space and beyond, but to contribute to this fecund moment of artistic production and creativity in our city.

Lovi: radura

Exhibition info: March 16  – May 8: Radura. (Clearing) Mauro Lovi

All images courtesy of OTTO luogo d’arte.

Lovi: radura

A family interacts with art at the MART in Rovereto. Photo: MART used by permission.

Italy is not known for its contemporary art – at least not lately, and not in Italy itself. Recently a Tripadvisor member posted a question about where to see contemporary art in Tuscany and Italy and I realized that I’d never summarized it all in one post.

There was an interesting article in the New York Times in 2008 about how stalled the Contemporary art scene is here thanks to a lack of a larger organizational structure for it – as well as a lack of funding and in general of interest. While in recent years we’ve seen the openings of more structures for contemporary art, and some move on the part of regional or local governments in the encouragement of the arts (I’ve observed this here in Florence), the overall scene still lacks coordination. One problem is a lack of attention to arts marketing (I blog about that too) even at it’s most basic form like a list or calendar of what’s on.

Leaving reasons aside for the moment, given that nobody else has done it, I want to create a working list of contemporary art museums and large galleries that might be of interest to the common visitor. I’m not going to list every single art gallery but only those that I’d personally feel comfortable entering. To supplement what I could gather on my own, I consulted Luca Melchionna — he works in communications at the MART and is a freelance journalist whose opinions on contemporary art I respect very much.Further additions to this list are welcome in the comments of this blog post!

Contemporary art in Tuscany

"All art has been contemporary" installation on Uffizi Gallery by Maurizio Nannucci , 2010. Photo: Carlo Cantini

Florence - The Strozzina inside Palazzo Strozzi is your best bet for a good contemporary art exhibit in this city. The rotating exhibits are usually related to the theme being explored in the larger space upstairs. Strozzina brings an international touch to the city, often with emerging or established artists from Germany, the USA, and elsewhere. Weekly talks inside the space (in Italian) are part of it’s outreach to the city.

Florence’s EX3 contemporary art center is also worth a mention; they offer exhibits on a rotating basis and are located in a residential area. Their exhibits are of mixed quality though the latest, Suspended Sculptures (until May 8 2011) is visually exciting and of a truly international quality.

Prato - the Centro Pecci opened 15 years ago and has offered good quality temporary rotating exhibits since that time. Now it’s undergoing a massive expansion scheme that will make it THE reference center for contemporary art in Tuscany. The new spaces will permit the exhibition of the permanent collection. The expected date of 2012 has been extended to 2013 and I expect it to be extended again. Parts of this collection have been traveling worldwide, especially to China, as part of an innovative scheme to make Italian contemporary art known abroad.

Pistoia - In this smallish town, Palazzo Fabroni has some pretty innovative exhibits, but it’s hard to find out what’s on since it doesn’t have a dedicated website. As I occasionally receive their press releases, your best bet is to check my list of what’s on in Tuscany.

San Gimignano – this super touristy town has some of the best contemporary art in this part of Italy at Galleria Continua (which also has branches in Beijing and France and is a regular lender to exhibits Italy-wide). Their artist roster includes important international artists like Chen Zhen, Kendell Geers, Anish Kapoor, and Subodh Gupta.

Lucca - The Lu.C.C.a. (Lucca Center for Contemporary Art) offers rotating exhibits of varying quality. The main gallery shows better known artists while the Lounge and basement areas have emerging artists or very small exhibits, with the bonus being that these are usually free. There is also a cafe in this space.

Luca adds: “One curious thing about Tuscany is the concentration of galleries, some of them rather good (Enrico Astuni, Barbara Paci), in Marina di Pietrasanta.” Also the area in and around Carrara – thanks to its marble – hosts a lot of sculptors, especially during its Biennale, which Luca says “under a new director (Fabio Cavallucci), the Biennale opened itself to contemporary sculpture”.

For a list of current exhibitions see Tuscany Arts.

Umbria

Brufa

Arttrav’s guest writer Rebecca in Umbria has written an excellent post about contemporary art in Umbria in which she mentions some of the following locations:

Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary is the permanent space developed out of the Flash art fair in Trevi.

Scultori a Brufa is a series of sculptures installed in the landscape near this tiny hamlet.

The Burri Foundation owns over 250 works by Alberto Burri (Citta di Castello, PG)

The brand-new CIAC Museum in Foligno opened in 2010.

Rome

When you are in Rome, check out the two new spaces MACRO and MAXXI:

MAXXI - Opened May 30th 2010. Controversy still surrounds the design of the building by architect Zaha Hadid, but one thing’s for sure: there is a new, international feeling in and around this building. Personally, I found the architecture tiring and disorienting and the content poor (I think they ran out of money during construction and forgot to buy art.). For my slightly more polite impressions see my review “MAXXI-mum space in Rome” on illywords blog.

The new MACRO is an expansion project with a new building by Odile Decq that just finally opened fully at the start of December 2010 (it’s been in the making since 2001). Part of the city museums of Rome, it usually offers about 5-6 exhibitions at once across its two locations in Rome. NB there is also a branch of the macro at Testaccio.

The Gagosian Gallery is apparently one of the most innovative in Rome (perhaps in Italy?), known for displaying large-scale projects. Their artist roster is impressive and includes some artists of international standing, such as Jannis Kounellis or Cy Twombly, who have lived or do live in Rome. The gallery has branches in New York and Geneva, and just now (Feb 2011) is inaugurating its Hong Kong branch with an exhibition by Damien Hirst.

Luca adds: “The Istituto Svizzero di Roma, thanks to a smart sicilian curator (Salvatore Lacagnina) produces surprisingly good exhibitions.”

And Buzz-in-rome adds (from the comments below): the exhibitions of Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Museo Carlo Bilotti and the private gallery Edieuropa

Milan

My personal knowledge of the Milanese art scene is… zero! So this part relies totally on tips from Luca, who says he’s probably forgetting a lot. But I’d say this is a good place to start.

The new Museo del Novecento (20th century art) just opened in Piazza Duomo [editor's note: Arttrav will be visiting and reporting on that in 2 weeks.]

The Triennale (design museum) has rotating exhibits and a really cool internet section dedicated to art & technology.

Other exhibition spaces include PAC (Padiglione delle arti contemporanee) and Palazzo Reale (current show – until 28/02/2011 – by Iranian artist Shirin Neshat).

The leading galleries in Milan are:

• www.massimodecarlo.it
• www.giomarconi.com
• http://www.liarumma.it/
• http://www.francescaminini.it/
• http://www.galleriatega.it
• http://www.cardiblackbox.com

Emerging Pop artists can be discovered at Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea.

We should also note the non-profit Via Farini which has exhibitions, artists workshops and other programmes to support emerging artists.

Southern Italy

Sign the petition to save MADRE

Naples: Galleria Lia Rumma (A Milan branch opened recently too) has an important roster of international artists including Marina Abramovic.

Naples MADRE - this amazing contemporary museum currently risks closing for lack of funds (click the photo above to sign a petition to save it). This museum has a strong permanent collection with an amazing virtual tour narrated in english, and has hosted temporary exhibits by literally ALL the most important contemporary artists.

Matera: MUSMA - I haven’t seen it myself but a friend of mine (who runs a small museum in the States) says it’s one of the best contemporary sculpture museums she’s seen. Right there in a prehistoric town!

Northern Italy

The real contemporary art scene in Italy takes place north of center where industrial riches have combined with social responsibility.

Bologna: MAMBO – 9500 square meters of exhibition space with a permanent collection and some rotating shows. Particularly useful is the section “Focus on Contemporary Italian Artists” from Arte Povera to now. (www.mambo-bologna.org)

MART – Trentino and Rovereto. The main building of this two-sided contemporary art museum is in the smallish (and boring!) town of Rovereto. It’s building by Mario Botta is an attraction unto itself. Inside, find the permanent collection as well as a few rotating exhibits. One of the few museums in Italy to have a cafeteria and bookshop (american-style!) as well as a good education department.

Luca M. also recommends Museion Bolzano, the museum of modern and contemporary art in Bolzano (which is about as far North as you can get in Italy). They have temporary exhibitions on rotation.

Torino: Fondazione Re Rebaudengo

Biella: Citta dell’Arte – The Foundation established by Michelangelo Pistoletto in Biella just north of Torino is both exhibition space and creative workshop (www.cittadellarte.it)

Fabio Paris Gallery in Brescia is THE place in Italy for the digital art scene.

Torino: Fondazione Re Rebaudengo – Opened in Turin in 1995 by contemporary art collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and with the collaboration of curator/critic Francesco Bonami, the foundation has a strong mission that combines exhibition and education.

Torino: Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art – An ancient medieval castle is the perfect place to house a permanent collection (opened 1984) and exhibitions of contemporary art, no?

Pordenone: the PARCO, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Pordenone, opened in November 2010

Art Fairs

Throughout the course of the year there are high points in Italy’s art scene, fairs that last a few days to a few weeks that demonstrate the country’s ability to innovate on a global level. These are:

• Torino Artissima (November)
• Bologna Arte Fiera (January)
• Biennale di Venezia
• Emiko (on the arttrav facebook page) adds: Lucca Digital Photo Fair

Contemporary Art Day – not a fair but a country-wide day dedicated to the contemporary arts in October, during which access to all contemporary museums and galleries should be free, and some special events are planned.

More on the meaning of the work (in Italian):

Altri luoghi comuni dell’estetica molteplice, simultanea e avvolgente del barocco, attraversano da sempre la cifra stilistica dell’artista: l’horror vacui, inteso come paura e al contempo tentazione dell’abisso, e lo spiazzamento logico e percettivo.

Seguendo una logica paradossale, iconoclasta e immaginosa, Echaurren fa entrare in rotta di collisione il barocco con il rock e non solo per facile assonanza. Anche il rock genera la perdita d’identità, stimolando vertiginosi movimenti e spezzando l’unità per ruotare intorno a più centri. Sono questi elementi, insieme a una acuta riflessione sul lessico futurista, altro grande polo della formazione e dell’immaginario di Echaurren, che costituiscono la base di Baroque’n’roll. Un mondo plastico provocatorio e paradossale in cui convivono senza soluzione di continuità le forme sinuose dei bassi elettrici, astratti cieli stellati, ricche cornici barocche popolate di putti e teschi e raggi di luce dorata.

MACRO Rome: Via Nizza, angolo via Cagliari in the central hall

Clet poses with the original of his "Uomo Comune" sculpture

I recently interviewed Clet Abraham, Florence’s most popular street artist, for The Florentine. You can read the article “Clet: The man behind the stick figure”, but here I just wanted to give you a little behind the scenes material.

I’ve written about Clet’s two major interventions on Tuscany arts – the street signs and the sculpture on the bridge. Now, with the backing of a print newspaper, I felt comfortable asking for an interview in his studio. I also booked an appointment with Guiliano da Empoli, Superintendant of Culture (Assessore) for the city of Florence, to ask him what he thought of Clet and of street art in general. His, and the city’s, voice has been curiously absent in all the articles I’ve read about the artist, so I was pleased that he agreed to talk about this subject and release a statement for print.

People have been asking me what kind of a guy Clet is. The photos of him hamming it up with his own art pretty much speak for themselves. I can say he is very nice and down to earth, modest and rather embarrassed about all this attention. He’s not a young rebel nor in any way disrespectful to the city, nor does he have crazed ideologies or pretenses.

As my article in TF focused on the social aspects of this work and how we might resolve street art with preservation issues and administrative regulations (most of which are there for good reason), I didn’t get to expand much on the meaning of Clet’s work, something that we did talk about, and that he seems to have wanted me to write down. He later wrote me an email with some further reflections on what he’s doing, which I translate and publish here.

I do have something to say, and – being an artist – I can best say this through a work of art. But I’ll try (in words). The Common Man statue is intended as a stimulus to take an important and risky step. It represents one of those moments on one’s life in which one needs to make a decision even not knowing its consequences (the void below him is this unknowingness). So Uomo Comune decides to take this step, and invites everyone to do it. The irony lays in being part of this dangerous spectacle from the safe side of the railing. The act is permanently frozen in limbo, being a sculpture that doesn’t move and will never finish stepping out, and so will never know if his choice was the right one or not – the only way for us to know is if we were to try it ourselves.

The provocation here is having installed him without permission, which involves a choice: I, personally, do want to take a step. If you want to journey with me, leave up this symbol of intention; if you remove it, to me it means that you don’t have any intention of moving ahead because you don’t have the courage to take risks. So the real artistic act is composed of various intrinsically linked components: location, object, and intervention; it’s not a simple sculpture, the form of which might be up for discussion.

With thanks to Clet for his time, and wishing him best of luck for the future. I see great things.

Contemporary art bookshop in palazzo vecchio sends "new" message

If the display of Damian Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull called “The Love of God” is really a message by Palazzo Vecchio that the OLD palace is open to NEW ideas (and art), the presence of a contemporary art bookstore by Arthemisia Group on the ground floor of Florence’s seat of government is a supporting document. The shop almost makes you feel as if you’re in New York or some other modern country – with nice lighting, a great selection of books and affordable design objects – only the books are in Italian rather than in English.

The space is intended to complement the exhibition of Hirst’s work (until May 1 2011) but wouldn’t it be nice if it were here to stay? Maybe with an English section? Check out the luscious photos below.

image (c) 2010 Gianna Scoino

Well known Florentine artist Gianna Scoino has a show opening tomorrow at Galleria Tornabuoni (Borgo San Jacopo 53r) called “Memorie Cucite” – Sewn memories. These multimedia works (paper, sewing thread, hand printing) are subtely beautiful. They sew together memories of the past using a personal visual language.

Opening October 28th at 6pm; Until November 16th. Free.

Certain topics seem inherently polarizing. Country-western music, for example. Home schooling. Mayonnaise on french fries. And, of course, contemporary art.

Which is why I find it surprising that so much contemporary art is found in Umbria, a stodgy – though beautiful – central Italian region known more for its reserved and conservative nature and the fact that it pretty much ran out of iconoclastic steam when native son Saint Francis of Assisi revolutionized the Catholic church in the thirteenth century than for its artistic envelope pushing.

Yet Contemporary Art in Umbria seems to pop out at you from the most surprising places. My first brush was about twenty years ago when I stumbled upon Flash Art. (Contemporary art seems to lend itself to being stumbled upon. I have lunched at many oddly shaped park benches before realizing that I am perched on some conceptual stone torso.)

Palazzo Lucarini

Flash art is an annual show of contemporary artists held in the improbable venue of Trevi, a tiny medieval hilltown otherwise known for its olive oil and black celery. The event was organized by the venerable Flash Art periodical, whose editor is originally from this Umbrian village. Like most collective exhibitions, the works were a mix of the banal (how many more times are we going to be shown rooms bare but for a pile of trash in the center and a sense of angst hovering above?), the thought-provoking, the visionary, and – primarily – the self-referential. But the juxtaposition between the historic stone palazzi and the jarring contemporary installations worked. No longer an annual event, Flash Art has morphed into a permanent exposition space called Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary which has been host to shows of contemporary artists since 1993.

Burri

Then, in 1995, Alberto Burri died. Which means that everyone suddenly fell in love with Alberto Burri, including those who had never heard of him. Including me. Born in the Umbrian town of Città di Castello, Burri is one of the best known contemporary Italian artists outside of Italy. His abstract collages, charred wood, plastic, and burlap works, cracked paintings, and Cellotex creations are included in the collections at New York’s Guggenheim, Paris’ Musée National d’Art Moderne, and London’s Tate, but his most complete collection of works can be found back in his small hometown in northern Umbria. The Burri Foundation owns over 250 works; those from his earlier period are housed in the Renaissance Palazzo Albizzini, while those from 1970 until his death can be found in the Ex Seccatoi del Tabacco, an immense industrial complex used in the mid-1900s to dry tabacco and restored and converted into a exhibition space in 1990.

Perhaps one of my favorite stumbles occurred in the bucolic vineyard-covered hills near Torgiano. I was toodling along on my bike, minding my own business, when I came around a curve and suddenly found myself facing a monumental stone and steel sculpture surrounded by nothing but fields and pastures. “Huh,” I thought. I continued peddling and about half a kilometer down the road came across a towering stainless steel tree. By the third work of art, I figured there must be a rhyme or reason here, and indeed came to find out that I had unwittingly biked right smack in the middle of one of the best collections of contemporary landscape art around. Scultori a Brufa began in 1987 when this tiny hamlet decided (somewhat mysteriously; no one seems to recall the catalyst) to begin annually installing a work of contemporary outdoor sculpture in the center of town and the outlying hills. The project is meant to ponder the relationship between wine and art, art and nature, and/or artist and local – depending upon whom you ask – but the effect of these spare pieces surrounded by the romantic Umbrian landscape is undeniably fetching, regardless of the message.

[editor's note: This promotional video for Brufa is in Italian but you'll get a good idea of the works in the landscape]

Contemporary Art Museums in Umbria (plus: hotels, restaurants, and galleries)

The art of art

CIAC Foligno

Despite this climate of budget cuts and economic crunching, Umbria has (against all odds) opened two new Contemporary art museums in 2010: the brand-new CIAC Museum in Foligno and the new-to-you refurbished and reorganized Museo Carandente (part of the Palazzo Collicola Arti Visive complex) in Spoleto. If impenetrably sleek websites and chic-ly unhelpful staff is any sign, these are both destined for greatness.

The art of sleeping

Umbria is home to two luxury hotels which combine four star hospitality with four star contemporary art. The Albornoz Palace Hotel in Spoleto and the ArteHotel in Perugia both have frescoes, paintings, sculptures, reliefs and temporary exhibitions throughout their public spaces, private rooms, and outdoor gardens.

The art of eating

L'Officina art restaurant in Perugia

L’Officina Ristorante Culturale in Perugia is part restaurant, part art gallery, all cutting edge. Good food, good art, good times. The new Palazzo Collicola (www.palazzocollicola.it) in Spoleto is opening their museum cafeteria this week in occasion of the National Day of Contemporary Art; the space was designed by Italian installation artist Veronica Montanino.

The art of shopping

For a taste of what contemporary Italian artists – Umbrian and non – have to offer, you can take a look at the friendly and tiny Minigallery (it lives up to its name) in Assisi or the larger but more formal Galleria Artemisia in Perugia.

PS – If you love Rebecca’s writing as much as I do, you’ll want to read her blog about expat life in Umbria.

At the same time (and obviously related), I’m really looking forward to Private Flat, an annual event that allows you to peek into peoples’ houses while ostensibly looking at the 70 artists’ work installed there. Over three days this weekend (October 8-9-10), follow the map provided on the private flat website to explore what your contemporaries are doing in Florence. Friday spaces will be available from 16-21, while saturday and sunday from 10-20. I’ll be trying to go to as many as possible while still working around other plans – namely a marvellous cheese-based dinner in the countryside from my friends at De Gustibus !

Mart Rovereto glass topped courtyard. Photo: Franco Bertolani

The MART is one of Italy’s most important contemporary art museums , and last year they were one of only four Italian museums on twitter (now there are 7, wow. See followamuseum). This made me really curious, enough to stop in Rovereto on my way back down to Florence from my Sud-Tirol weekend this past Spring. I was particularly interested in seeing the fabulous structure, with its signature glass topped courtyard, designed by Mario Botta and inaugurated only in 2002.

Now an exhibit, opened last week, focuses precisely on this architecture, and specifically on its Swiss architect. Sounds like an excuse to go to Rovereto!! From 25 September 2010 to 23 January 2011 “Mario Botta. Architecture 1960-2010” is an exhibition curated by the architect himself, with the scientific direction of Gabriella Belli.

From the press release:

Mario Botta, House in Breganzona

The exhibition documents the most significant works by Mario Botta, who was born in Mendrisio in 1943 and graduated from university in Venice, over many years of successful professional activity: from the first detached homes, original expressions of the Ticino school to the large public buildings, libraries, theatres, museums, churches and synagogues constructed throughout the world. Over 90 projects will be on display, all of them built, documented with original sketches and models, unpublished photographs and documents.

The exhibition will be divided into 12 sections: the first is entitled “Meetings” and provides a sort of introductory space comprising the works and memories of artists and works, of cultural and musical figures who have left a profound mark on the man and the architect.

The other sections, called Living, Workplaces, Schools, Libraries and free time, Urban reconnections, Museums, Theatres, Sacred spaces, Interiors, explore the personal developments in design that led Mario Botta to work in every form of construction sector. In particular, it is worth noting the fascinating documents for the Musée Tinguely in Basle, for the MoMA in San Francisco, for the Dürrenmatt Centre in Neuchâtel, for the restoration of La Scala in Milan and, naturally, for the Mart di Rovereto itself.

The last sections are dedicated to Mario Botta’s creations in the field of Layouts, Set Design and Design: from the successful chairs designed in the early 1980s for Alias to the lamps, including the “Shogun” sold by Artemide as of 1985, and to the recent “Table for Cleto Munari”.

Mario Botta’s architectural development has its roots in an interpretation of the Modern Movement and remains faithful to its tenets, taking the form today of “critical reasoning” before the fragility of models and fashions offered by globalisation. In his studio in Lugano, the Ticino-born architect designs buildings that base their raison d’être on an awareness of interpreting the sensitivity of contemporary culture and at the same time of evoking that territory of history and of memory constituting the true heritage of identity of European architecture. “The fabric of memory”, writes Botta in the text of the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, “is a living reality that draws us in like philosophy or the history of art”. Botta’s stance should not be considered a yielding to nostalgia: past and present live together in his figurative language, formed of geometry and materials. He is perfectly aware of the need to tackle the complexity and frenzy of contemporary living:

My objective is to offer a space in which man can feel himself a protagonist in the silence of his own solitude, and at the same time participate in a collective rite. It is within the complexity and rapidity of current transformations that the architect is called upon to elaborate these new project responses.

Botta’s architecture revives a primitive vocation of essential form that models man’s living space and which, reflecting the functions which it should provide, aspires to offer fresh emotions.

If you cannot make it to the MART, the exhibition will then travel to the Centre Dürrenmatt in Neuchâtel (Switzerland) where it will be from 1 April to 28 August 2011.

Further information:

exhibit dates: 25 September 2010 to 23 January 2011
MartRovereto – Corso Bettini, 43 38068 Rovereto (TN)
http://english.mart.trento.it/
Opening hours: Tues. – Sun. 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. / Fri. 10 a.m. – 9 p.m. / Mondays closed
Tickets 10/7 euro

Anyway it’s a solo exhibit at the EX3 contemporary art gallery in Florence’s quartiere 3 residential area (next to the ipercoop gavinana), an interesting space that opened up recently and attracts contemporary art at an international level. There’s a cafe’ in this space and occasional events, like the Pecha Kucha I attended last winter.

Info:

EX3 – Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea until Sept 19 (minus the august closure)

Viale Giannotti 81/83/85 – 50126 Firenze
Orario di apertura: dal 1 luglio al 12 settembre 2010 – dal mercoledì alla domenica, dalle 14.00 alle 22

Chiuso il lunedì e il martedì
Chiusura estiva dall’8 agosto al 31 agosto 2010  compresi
Per informazioni: tel 055 6287091 – www.ex3.it – info@ex3.it

Kant: Time is in us and we are in time.

The white rabbit: I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.

The exhibit “As soon as possible – acceleration in contemporary society” at Strozzina in Florence makes us stop and think. In recent years, everything around us has been accelerated, leaving us feeling at times stressed and alienated. It’s no coincidence that the past few years have seen a counter-trend in “slow food”, “slow travel”, and even “slow art”.

I also edit the blog of illywords magazine, and noticed that they were already feeling the stress of these fast rythms in 2002 with issue #1, Timetables and Scoreboards, and the constant flow of information that bombards us and forces us to move faster comes up also in #14, Refresh. The question of speed is always current.

In the basement exhibition space of Palazzo Strozzi, Curator Franziska Nori has asked ten international contemporary artists working on the theme of acceleration to contribute their diverse approaches. Seven essays expand and reflect on the theme independantly of what’s in the gallery, making the catalogue an indispensable aid. Thursday night gallery talks (with free admission) also add to the debate.

How often have you been asked to do a task for someone and been told “I need it right away… actually, it was due yesterday.” Work knows no boundaries of office hours or office spaces; “flexible location” and “smartphones” make us think we’re important but they just help us work all the time, everywhere. Mark Formanek makes an observation on the ridiculous pace of our workday by having a group of workmen build a digital clock out of wood that moves with each minute (the work is titled Standard Time). The 24 hour dvd loop plays in the gallery; the work doesn’t stop with the museum’s closure. The people in the video just keep going, they never have time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

A complete change of pace can be found in Jens Risch’s patient knotting of kilometers’ worth of silk thread. In some cases the resulting small blobs that recall coral took four years to complete. The artist keeps a diary of his daily activity of knot-tying. He must be the most patient person in the world.

There is tension in both these works, though – in the tight knot by Risch, or in the pace of the workmen in Formanek. Tension to the point of danger is present in Arcangelo Sassolino’s Pneumatic Expansion of a Living Force – a glass bottle in a bulletproof glass case, attached to a nitrogen tank. There is a sign in the gallery that warns us of the imminent explosion. It’s a matter of liability (think what would happen is there were a visitor with pacemaker), but you’re likely to jump just the same. We observe the bottle in the case and wonder when and if it will explode. Eventually it does, and a gallery attendant has to replace it and start over again.

The editorial presentation of illywords #1 points out that:

… being mature and professional individuals, we want to be able to manage our own time and rhythm peacefully and sensibly.

That’s what the young German artist Fiete Stolte wants to do. He has decided to live in a parallel universe composed of eight 21-hour days, during which natural and artificial light phase in and out of alignment. This rhthym expresses itself visually in a series of photographs of his office window viewed from outside, mounted on the gallery wall. His decision is based on the idea that the conventional week is not long enough. I have to contest this – I always feel that there are not enough hours in the day to get things done, so if 24 aren’t enough, imagine having 21! I filmed Stolte explaining his work:

Tension, time management, and the constant flow of information… this last theme and how it makes us feel is present in works by Marnix de Nijs, Julius Popp, and Tamy Ben-Tor. Ben-Tor’s contribution is a video of herself dressed up in a silly wig, reciting a litany of spam email that is both familiar and annoying. De Nijs gets you to sit down in a futuristic chair and spin around trying to synchronize movement with views of an anonymous city panorama. As the catalogue says, “the images simulate the speed of the world which we live in and which forces man to increase his own speed for the sake of progress.” If you get it right, you don’t get dizzy; I clearly didn’t succeed. Seldom does successful art make one feel so nauseated.

Popp’s installation, on the other hand, hypnotized me with the relaxing sound of falling water, which one realizes is exactly anti-zen. Tiny drops of water compose words that exist for seconds before falling into the basin below for recycling. These words are drawn from a real-time connection to Google News; they are that moment’s most relevant keywords. This piece is never the same from one moment to the next. (You can hear the rhythm and see what I mean in the second half of this video.)

The theme of acceleration is by all means a key one in this decade and probably will continue to be so in years to come. Personally I am not willing to live in an alternate reality (be it a false 8 hour week or by withdrawing to a hermitage); in fact, I like technology a lot. Exhibits like this one help keep things in check by asking us to think about our lifestyle. Consciousness is the first step towards any solution.

Here are photos from the exhibit that I took for Tuscany Arts, the blog I write for the Region about art in Tuscany.

ASAP at Strozzina is on in Florence through July 18^th 2010. Go!

Trips are planned for April 11 and 18, May 9, 15, and 21 2010 and organized by Aida Studio. To reserve, this is the phone number: 0573 97461. The itineraries are listed below (sadly I couldn’t find a press release in English). These are all places and activities you’d never find on your own! I’d encourage tourists to join these tours even if you don’t speak Italian.

MONSUMMANO TERME – PESCIA: DOMENICA 18 APRILE

Ore 10.00 Ritrovo alla Stazione ferroviaria di Pistoia e partenza in autobus per:

MONSUMMANO TERME

Ore 10.30 Mac,n – Museo di arte contemporanea e del Novecento – Villa Renatico Martini

Caffè di benvenuto

Sprazzi: colori, musica e parole

Itinerario performativo e musicale in villa e visita alla mostra di Leonardo Savioli

In collaborazione con Laboratorio Afrodita e Cooperativa Giodò

Pièces brèves

Marco Salvatori, oboe

Stefano Vicentini, fagotto

Musiche di Georg Friedrich Händel, Antonio Vivaldi, Joseph Fiala, Heitor Villa – Lobos

Ore 12.30 Pranzo – Agriturismo Poggio degli Olivi, Monsummano Terme

(prenotazione obbligatoria entro giovedì 15 aprile. Il servizio è garantito per un numero minimo di 20 persone. Spazio all’aperto per pranzi “al sacco” nel parco della villa)

PESCIA

Ore 15.00 Collodi, Parco di Pinocchio.

Visita alle opere di Venturino Venturi, Emilio Greco, Giovanni Michelucci, Pietro Porcinai, Pietro Consagra e Marco Zanuso

Ore 16.30 Visita alla Gipsoteca Libero Andreotti

Ore 17.30

Un soffio di Novecento

Quintetto a fiati del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Musiche di Nino Rota, Giorgio Federico Ghedini, Jacques Ibèrt, Gianfrancesco Malipiero, Ferenc Farkas

Massimo 50 persone. Prenotazione obbligatoria al numero 0573 97461. La partecipazione è gratuita e comprende il trasferimento in pulman, l’ingresso ai musei, le guide e i concerti.

PISTOIA CITTA’: DOMENICA 9 MAGGIO

Ore 10.00 Ritrovo a Pistoia in Piazza Garibaldi

Percorso a piedi

Visita guidata alle opere del centro storico: Giro del Sole di Roberto Barni, la Luna nel Pozzo di Gianni Ruffi, Il Miracolo di Marino Marini

Ore 11.00 Museo Marino Marini, Cavaliere a Cavallo

Colazione con accompagnamento musicale a cura della Banda Borgognoni di Pistoia e visita guidata al museo

Ore 13.00 Pranzo – Caffetteria Marino Marini ( prenotazione obbligatoria entro giovedì 6 maggio. Il servizio è garantito per un numero minimo di 30 persone)

Ore 15.00 Padiglione di Emodialisi dell’Ospedale del Ceppo (via Degli Armeni)

Scienza e arte al servizio dell’uomo

Visita guidata alle opere di Daniel Buren, Dani Karavan, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Hidetoshi Nagasawa, Claudio Parmiggiani e Gianni Ruffi

Ore 16.00 Palazzo Fabroni (via Santa 5) secondo piano

Un museo per riflettere sull’arte contemporanea

Visita guidata alla collezione permanente

Ore 17.00 Palazzo Fabroni, salone del primo piano

Attraverso la forma

Lorenzo Fuoco, violino I

Andrea Tavani, violino II

Pierpaolo Ricci, viola

Elida Pali, violoncello

Musiche di Ludwig van Beethoven e Claude Debussy

Massimo 25 persone. Prenotazione obbligatoria al numero 0573 97461. La partecipazione è gratuita.

PISTOIA-SANTOMATO: SABATO 15 MAGGIO

Ore 14.00 Ritrovo alla Stazione ferroviaria di Pistoia e partenza in autobus

Visita alla collezione privata della Fattoria di Celle a Santomato – Pistoia

(La visita ha una durata di 4 ore. Rientro previsto alle ore 19.00)

Massimo 50 persone. Prenotazione obbligatoria al numero 0573 97461. La partecipazione è gratuita

PISTOIA-FELCETI: SABATO 22 MAGGIO

Ore 15.00 Ritrovo alla Stazione ferroviaria di Pistoia e partenza in autobus

Ore 15.20

Villa Stonorov, Fondazione Pistoiese Jorio Vivarelli, Felceti (Pistoia)

Il teatro del ricordo

Pièce dedicata allo scultore Jorio Vivarelli realizzata da Massimo Biagi Miradario, con interventi musicali a cura della Scuola Comunale di Musica Teatro e Danza “Teodulo Mabellini” di Pistoia

Proiezione del video Jorio Vivarelli scultore: la materia della vita a cura di Veronica Ferretti

Massimo 50 persone. Prenotazione obbligatoria al numero 0573 97461. La partecipazione è gratuita

Design Library, Milano

Lately I’ve noticed a trend that I like very much: the bookshop/library, contemporary design, cafe/restaurant. I mean really, this combines everything I love best! This week I had the fortune of finding two examples of these polyfunctional spaces, and I expect that more will open soon.

MILANO: Design Library (Via Savona 11)

This is actually a library (not a bookstore), with a 20 euro library card and a reading room with books entirely dedicated to design. There’s an area near the door with couches and magazines that appears to be open to everyone. It’s also a luminous modern cafe’ with a nice lunch menu. It’s sufficiently quiet in the restaurant to have a proper business lunch here. I had the salad bar, which has a good variety of boiled vegetables.

121 Temporary Bookshop

Backed by corporate sponsors and with a branch open in Shanghai since 2007, this place is clearly a success. Open since 2006, its aim is to promote Italian design in the world. They have a serious list of weekly conferences and debates printed on a sleek flyer, featuring designers who will speak of things like sustainability, projecting, communication and the like. Well, this is Milan, so they have enough designers and interested public to pull this off.

In case you get sad cuz you could only read but not buy books, fear not: Just down the street at no. 121 there’s “121 Temporary bookshop” until March 18 2010 by Edizioni Corraini, with a mouth-watering selection of art books and toys.

Florence: Libreria Brac (via dei Vagellai, 18r)

Libreria Brac, Firenze (Florence)

We’re always a few years behind Milan but Libreria Brac is helping Florence catch up on the contemporary scene. Open only 5 months ago, Brac has a more difficult crowd to overcome (think Staid Florentines), but their central-yet-hidden position, their charm and good food will hopefully ensure their survival.

Brac sells contemporary art books and has a very homey cafe’ area divided in two by a pleasant courtyard. They have events and art shows announced on their website. And best of all, the kitchen provides vegetarian OR vegan food!

Not only am I going to officially start hanging out here cuz I like it, but I hope to organize an event that will include an aperitivo here in the Spring, so stay tuned!

Hopefully forthcoming in Florence…

Now for speculation… At Le Murate, the new center for the contemporary (life and arts) in Florence, the local government has put out a call for applications for an association wishing to create a “cafe’ filosofico o letterario” – a literary or philosophical cafe. What might a place like this look like? And what will be its cultural offering? We’ll have to wait until this summer to find out… but I’ll be the first to let you know when it happens.

Some art has gotten too big

Tuscany, with its soft rolling hills, is a perfect frame for contemporary art. Projects include the Parco di Celle near Pistoia that belongs to the major international collector Giuliano Gori; the Chianti sculpture park (www.chiantisculpturepark.it); a redesigned woods at the “Ragnaia” at San Giovanni d’Asso by Sheppard Craige; and now the Casato Prime Donne’s “Trekking d’Autore”, works placed amongst the Brunello vines in the Crete Senesi.

Maybe one of the first works of this sort in Tuscany is the 1993 installation by sculptor Jean Paul Philippe, who chose the Crete Senesi (between Siena and Asciano) as the location for his work Site Transitoire. The landscape’s natural linearity was thus interruped by a work that both alters it and gives it value, points at its individuality. The work’s seven massive stones dialogue amongst themselves and frame the hills that they inhabit. www.jeanpaulphilippe.eu

Recently I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a big metal circle frame the landscape just outside the town of Volterra; this is by Mauro Staccioli and there are other works by him on display nearby. It’d be worth it to go find all the pieces, which are on display until September 2010.

Amongst Donatella Cinelli Colombini’s Brunello di Montalcino vines, the “Trekking d’autore” project invites visitors on a meditative walk punctuated by art. Each site is dedicated to a woman who has won the Premio Casato Prime Donne prize for a major contribution in the field in which she works, including author Frances Mayes, dancer Carla Fracci, human rights celebrant Kerry Kennedy.

American writer Jeff Shapiro makes his viewers ponder, via four “speaking stones”, the following questions:  “See what’s growing… See in order to grow… Do you see?… And are you growing?” – important questions that relate the viewer’s personal growth to the land upon which they are standing. Marco Pignattai refers to this land and its working by cattle with a life-size metal cut-out of the chianina cow who pulls antique farm equipment across the fields (see photo above). At a high point in the landscape, Rossana Mulinari recalls her solo pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostela with the installation of a wooden cross covered with mirrors and held up by six blocks of travertine marble.

Closer to the cantina, or cellar building, the artworks exalt the female nature of this enterprise – the only entirely female-run wine producer in Italy. Eight doves by the sculptor Orlando Orlandini are clearly a symbol of peace, while four photographic portraits by Bruno Bruchi and Giovanni Senatore record four very different but contemporary women including a grandmother who is making pinci, the typical pasta of Montalcino. The Cinelli Colombini estate is open to visitors; the wine cellar (for tasting etc) weekdays 9-13 and 14-18 or weekends upon request. The art trekking area is open to everyone during operating hours, year-round. They’re very happy to welcome you and they speak good English!

Chapel by David Tremlett and Sol LeWitt, photo: www.ceretto.it

The connection between wine and landscape art has inspired some other producers as well. Outside of Tuscany the most stunning example is the integration of modern architecture and natural views at Ceretto (Alba, CN – www.ceretto.it ), whose vineyards host a colourful chapel by David Tremlett and Sol LeWitt, as well as a futuristic glass bubble in which you can taste wine and enjoy cultural events.

Landscape art offers a new venue for self-discovery, as well as for discovery of the landscape itself, which on its own may not always provide sufficient stimulus for reflection or photography.

This article is a the result of a collaboration: I’d like to thank Alessia Bianchi and Violante Gardini of Cinelli Colombini estates for providing the great idea and much of the content.

Read my review of Manipulating Reality on the turismo.intoscana.it blog.

Get into every exhibit at Palazzo Strozzi for only 20 euros from now until the end of January 2011 (!!!) with the “Palazzo Ticket” – I got one!

This is an opportunity to get out and do something different this fall, and to see cinematic offerings that you are unlikely to catch anywhere else.

Most films will be projected in their original language with subtitles in Italian. Full programmes are available on each of the Festival’s mini-websites, all of which can be accessed from this Mediateca Regionale page.

In this photo you can see the paper diamonds in their urban setting – if you think this is surreal, you should hear about how they were moved into place!

AT: Please tell us a little about yourself!

Stefano Giovacchini: I was born in Lucca in 1975 and studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze from where I graduated in 2001 with a thesis on Color Design. After that I had an internship at the museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, and have studied the application of color also at the University in Milan. I now work as a creative artist and designer in Lucca, painting, doing graphics, and designing with color. Currently I run Di.Segno, a company that does color projects and domestic mural projects: www.disegnodesign.it

AT: What is Cartasia? Can you tell us something about the history of paper in Lucca?

SG: Cartasia (www.cartasia.it) is a Biennale of Contemporary art now in its 5^th year; an event related to the artistic use of paper and its derivatives. First I should clarify why this would be in Lucca – in this province, they make almost all the packing and transport as well as domestic-use paper for all of Italy. Furthermore, there are companies that make paper-marking machinery here in the province of Lucca whose clients are all over the world. So, paper is one of Lucca’s major economic channels. It seems that they were already making paper in the province of Lucca back in the 1200′s when it was just brought to Europe by the ‘mores’.

So, I consider it entirely normal that there be an event that puts into the spotlight Lucca’s role in the paper business, but also one that addresses it from an artistic point of view, one that points out the aesthetic and creative role of this product. Also, as we’re in this economic crisis right now, I’d like to point out how artists can help evolve, distinguish, and promote paper and the paper industry.

diamonds in the rough!

AT: Well put! How did you get the occasion to participate?

SG: I submitted a proposal in the international competition organized by Cartasia – the theme is “paper and creativity as renewable resources”. 170 artists responded, 10 were selected to show their works in July 2010, while I was chosen as the inaugural artist whose work is being shown this September, which is a very important month for Lucca.

AT: I’m really impressed – you have a huge installation in what is probably the most prestigious piazza in the city of Lucca! I read that your work is intended to signify the precious aspects of two renewable resources: paper and creativity. What role did PLACE have in the way in which the final work was constructed and placed?

SG: actually, having my work in that piazza was more than I expected! In fact, for the proposal I had suggested a smaller project for another piazza, the Piazza del Giglio (del teatro). But they liked my idea so much that they asked me to make it larger and think about how to put it in piazza dell’ampiteatro, which Cartasia also considers the most prestigious space. In the past 5 events, an Italian has won this location only twice, so I am really honoured.

The ampitheatre’s shape easily lends itself as backdrop or site for my diamonds – a precious but also popular container, coherent with the language of the material and shape used – a precious object or space made of traditiona, poor, recyclable material.

Just made it out the door

AT: I noticed from the photos on your website that you made the diamonds in a warehouse in Lucca and then transported them one by one in the streets of Lucca. That must have been quite the experience! How far did you walk and what were the reactions of people who saw this process?

SG: The transport was perhaps the most interesting part of the work. Three of us moved each single diamond on a cart, passing by some of the most significant areas of the city, from the ex-tabacco factory, along the urban walls, in front of piazza San Frediano with its mosaic fronted church, along via Fillungo which is the principle road since Lucca’s Roman foundation, all the way to piazza dell’Anfiteatro. This was about 1.5 kilometers.

through the streets of lucca

People we encountered on this road did not fully understand the object being transported. They understood the shape, but not its weight, use, or material. Many were fascinated by the surreal event that happened before their eyes. It is not every day that you see a 3.5 meter diameter diamond made of paper being walked through the city by three people.

Some streets are rather narrow!

AT: That’s exactly what I thought when I saw the photos. I hope you made a video too!! You must have made the works to measure in consideration of getting out the door from the building in which you made it, but did you encounter any really tight squeezes on the road?

SG: Yes, it turns out that the entranceway to the piazza dell’Anfiteatro is narrower than I thought, so we had to go around via an external road and enter through a side door!

AT: the work is of course made of paper, and there is an emphasis on recycling in your description. What happens if it rains? And what happens to the work when the month’s show is over?

SG: The corrugated paper used for this installation had to be treated against the elements with a resin that unfortunately makes it not recyclable in a traditional sense. It can however be re-used: the larger diamonds will be dis-assembled but the smaller ones (2.5 meters) will be re-used by the organizers of Cartasia for future promotions.

Stefano’s piece is on view from September 5^th to October 3d 2009.
In Piazza Felice Orsi-Porcari there is another installation work by Enzo Iorio.

All Photos are by Silvia Vercelli.

Installation in the piazza

It’s organized by Eliotropica in conjunction with the new center for contemporary art that just opened up in that city, called Lu.C.C.A, Lucca Centre of Contemporary Art. This is a seven night package that includes accomodation, some meals, art equipment, a day’s bike rental, wine tasting, some tours, and plenty of information to guide yourself through the city and beyond. The price is super reasonable at only 496 euros!

You can see the entire itinerary and decide for yourself here; please say you saw it on arttrav.

Don’t forget – you can combine this week with another week elsewhere in Tuscany (Rosanna at Eliotropica could help you with that), and take advantage of the good airline rates in the Fall. The weather is always extreeeemly pleasant at that time of year. Yeah! give yourself a holiday!