19 maggio al 21 giugno
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo di Torino.
We are glad to present Praestigium Italia Contemporary Artists from Italy, Imago Mundi/Luciano Benetton Collection, With Ali Hassoun.
Diciannove artisti tra identità e differenze
a cura di Antonio d’Avossa
Arsenale Mediterraneo delle Arti Contemporanee – Taranto
La mostra intende offrire un vasto e diversificato panorama della produzione artistica proveniente dai Paesi del Mediterraneo inteso come realtà geografica culturale e antropologica. A sottolineare il multilinguismo e le diversità politiche e religiose partecipano in primo luogo gli artisti che praticano i più diversi linguaggi dell’espressione artistica: pittura, scultura, installazione, fotografia, video. La mostra vuole dimostrare anche la possibilità di convivenza all’interno dello stesso spazio e della stessa idea di questi diversi linguaggi. Inoltre gli artisti appartengono a differenti generazioni anche questo a dimostrare che nel tempo il dialogo delle arti non muta. Tutti gli artisti hanno un curriculum internazionale ed alla maggior parte di essi è stato richiesto di realizzare un’opera destinata a questa esposizione. Alcuni tra loro sono stati più volte presenti nelle più prestigiose rassegne internazionali come Documenta di Kassel o la Biennale di Venezia e loro opere sono conservate dai più grandi Musei del mondo. Tuttavia ciò che caratterizza la mostra non è il criterio geografico, peraltro estremamente anacronistico ed abusato, quanto piuttosto le problematiche espresse dalla geopolitica del Mediterraneo Contemporaneo. Per questo sono le opere scelte e gli artisti che parlano.
A. d’A.
Arte e Società, un progetto di aMAZElab
Triennale – Milano
a cura di Chiara Canali
Fabbrica Borroni – Milano
Arab artists between Italy and the Mediterranean
curated by Martina Corgnati
Damasco – Beirut – Cairo
From Ghazieh, a Shiite village on the outskirts of Sidon in south Lebanon, I suddenly found myself transported to Siena in little more than the blink of an eye and at the age of a little more than eighteen. The charm of Tuscany stimulated continuous journeys in my imagination and memories if my Lebanese childhood overlapped with the sight of the streets of Florence or the clay of Siena. It was as though I were suspended outside of time. I had set aside the reality of my sad experience of the war in Lebanon to plunge into a new history, trying to absorb and learn everything about this country, it’s language, it’s history and culture. That sounds of the bells reassured my need for spirituality and often I would go to a town or countryside to meditate. After completing undergraduate studies and obtaining Italian citizenship, the contradictions and duality of identity I was living under the protection of Siena reached a broken point. I decided to pack my bags and uproot myself once more, this time to move up to Milan to work as a painter. My decision was strengthened by the meeting with Aldo Mondino, which took place at his show in Siena. Aldo, an artist of a great value and simple man, encouraged to relocate “north”. His interest in the Muslim world gave me the strength to paint what I had held in reserve in my innermost consciousness. Perhaps the tensions of the change if millennium and the clashes that continued to occur worldwide had a strong impact on me and on the environment in which I lived. Without realizing and by striving to know myself, I began to Allah. I have taken the path of the Sufi, polishing the mirror of the heart and ultimately accepting my plural identity. From this experience emerged canvas with backgrounds borrowing from the frescoes if Michelangelo and Raphael or De Chirico’s paintings of the Piazze d’Italia. In Islamic mysticism, creativity and beauty are two sublime aspects of Godhead. Making art for me today does not mean just decorating the walls of mosques or palaces of power but thinking and rethinking one’s own culture to bring about its renewal. In final analysis, Aldo Mondino and I have followed a similar path but from different starting points, and he himself recalled when presenting me to the public in Milan in 1998: “What would I do if instead of being born in Turin, I was born in Beirut? … .. ”
Ali Hassoun – Milano, dicembre 2007
Artisti Arabi tra Italia e Mediterraneo
a cura di Martina Corgnati
Palazzo Montecitorio
Roma
From Ghazieh, a Shiite village on the outskirts of Sidon in south Lebanon, I suddenly found myself transported to Siena in little more than the blink of an eye and at the age of a little more than eighteen. The charm of Tuscany stimulated continuous journeys in my imagination and memories if my Lebanese childhood overlapped with the sight of the streets of Florence or the clay of Siena. It was as though I were suspended outside of time. I had set aside the reality of my sad experience of the war in Lebanon to plunge into a new history, trying to absorb and learn everything about this country, it’s language, it’s history and culture. That sounds of the bells reassured my need for spirituality and often I would go to a town or countryside to meditate. After completing undergraduate studies and obtaining Italian citizenship, the contradictions and duality of identity I was living under the protection of Siena reached a broken point. I decided to pack my bags and uproot myself once more, this time to move up to Milan to work as a painter. My decision was strengthened by the meeting with Aldo Mondino, which took place at his show in Siena. Aldo, an artist of a great value and simple man, encouraged to relocate “north”. His interest in the Muslim world gave me the strength to paint what I had held in reserve in my innermost consciousness. Perhaps the tensions of the change if millennium and the clashes that continued to occur worldwide had a strong impact on me and on the environment in which I lived. Without realizing and by striving to know myself, I began to Allah. I have taken the path of the Sufi, polishing the mirror of the heart and ultimately accepting my plural identity. From this experience emerged canvas with backgrounds borrowing from the frescoes if Michelangelo and Raphael or De Chirico’s paintings of the Piazze d’Italia. In Islamic mysticism, creativity and beauty are two sublime aspects of Godhead. Making art for me today does not mean just decorating the walls of mosques or palaces of power but thinking and rethinking one’s own culture to bring about its renewal. In final analysis, Aldo Mondino and I have followed a similar path but from different starting points, and he himself recalled when presenting me to the public in Milan in 1998: “What would I do if instead of being born in Turin, I was born in Beirut? … .. ”
Ali Hassoun – Milano, dicembre 2007
Miami Art Cicuits 1-6 Dicembre 2010
Warehouse 70, NW 25th Street Wynwood Arts Discrit, Miami (Florida – USA)
For some years now, Miami has become one of the world’s most important platforms for contemporary art: every year in December museum directors, international gallerists and artists gather in Miami to talk, renew partnership, exchange impressions about the arts market, share strategies related to technological innovation, and acquire new works for their collections, but also to see what the greatest festival of visual art in the world has to offer.
Starting from the areas of Art Basel Miami and Scope Miami Art Show or from initiatives of the Art District, visitors can choose what to see, how to perceive and how to live the atmosphere of a true celebration of modern and contemporary. And in the evening, he or she may get invited to one of the many parties taking place in the Art District, in the museum and in the permanent galleries in the area, with a good chance to meet not only the most important opinion leaders in the art world, but also personalities of cinema, culture, journalism and fashion.
The next edition of Art Basel Miami, which will be held on December 2-5,2010 will involve over 250 galleries among the most important in the world, representing north America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, that will exhibit works by over 2,000 artists already at the international level. According to industry experts, this edition should coincide whit a real economic recovery able to restarts investments and re-establish the fundamental circulation of works and money that is vital to the art system.
In the third millennium, the role of the museum of modern and contemporary art is bound to change, becoming more and more a n instrument of culture designed to target a broad, divers target. The role of the gallerists changes too – not just manager who offers works for costumer-collectors, but knowledge tools. And, above all, there is a change in the role of ever more demanding and knowledgeable costumers, that seek emotional pleasure, sensory involvement and social sharing in the arts. In a scenario like this where everything seems predictably unpredictable, you just have to experience art as lucid dream, as an unlikely obsession, or as a wonderful and conscious illusion that can make us still believe in fairy tales, but always aware that everyone is master of its own destiny.
Maurizio Vanni
It is a long path that leads to the opening of an ambitious and creative project, one conceived and refined to impact a reality that is sensational and sophisticated, but also shouted to the world whit the exuberance and the importance that comes from its own large dimension, its own boundless spaces, produced by the transformation of the city of Miami into the huge, gigantic and somewhat monstrous creature that puts itself up for show for five days during the first week of December every year.
A long path made of growing synergies and excellent testimonials, combined together. Testimonies from the world of art and culture in general, that love mixing together different culture, different tastes and different techniques .
For this reason EXHIBITALIA has created, in 2010,the first Italian pavilion, conceived to keep the pace of the most vibrant contemporary arts events in the world. It opens its own space in the Wynwood Art District of Miami, with an agenda that gives voice to the dialogue between artists and collectors, producer and sponsor, tourist and normal citizen of the metropolis. A dialogue to promote international cultural exchange in a sophisticated Italian context.
A synergy between institutions and the private sector, between “visual” artists and more traditionally figurative artists, between an eclectic and unique curator such as Maurizzio Vanni is and flexible, “on task” production by Ilaria Niccolini Production and Cabrini and Associates, between a leading guide such as the one provided by photography masters Masturzo and De Biasi, the and young photography talents welcomed by EXHIBITALIA; a synergy between typical Italian galleries, such as Mazzoleni art gallery, and galleries that are immersed in the European cultural word, like Poliedro gallery and SYRLIN-Art-Associates with EUART. But most importantly, a synergy between arts and business, as evidence by the sensational presence of some of the most celebrated Italian brands worldwide: FIAT, Ducati, SEA Milan Airports. An important show of support to the cultural world, trough which the companies receive a new stimulus, and a renewed media presence. A high-class synergy, vibrant and valuable. This is the true destinations of our path, a goal that is only a starting point for the next trip that will lead us to EXHIBITALIA 2011 in the name of an ever stronger relationship between culture and business.
Ilaria Niccoli
