Jan Fabre
Vedi tu has
been in the Turin weekend. We've seen, at least a part of the white night,
Artissima and his side events. This is a short story, then we'll take some of
the sums we've met. We start from the fact that 20 years ago the city decided
not to propose Christmas lights again, but to invest in artist lights. We know
how many resistance by citizens to decide between an angel in the sky who greets
the people and a Zorio installation. In the end, it seems that the citizens
get's a reason for this. Goes in the evening with tourists (more or less 100)
who did photos at Merz with his installation at the Mole, made us happy. If you
dine there, and you are not vegetarians, we can recommend Acino in S. Domenico
(for vegetarians and vegans La Capannina in via Donato). If you also want to
have a good Americano with ginger and see the bathroom mirror that makes you
afraid, go to the Demon House, in front of the Acino.
The others :Dancing arounds, we came to the biggest Italian creative energie's
exhibition. That is, independent spaces in reclaimed places ad hoc. Spaces who
dont have right to word, they are retrieved and patience. In this case, for the
second year, a former hospital. Each room, each operating room, each corridor
was occupied by dozens of independent galleries (hundreds of artists).
Just like the salon of the rejected that was oranized by Courbet
Also here
there was the "other food", which is a great meal with various
gourmet chefs. But on Saturday 4th it was open until 1 am , so we went there.
Apart from a general feeling of being in a students thing, a fun and cheerful
youthful day of art,we thought we had to find a review of galleries. Not public
spaces, free expression sites, but people who, while not in Artissima, are
faced with the problem of living through the sale of works, at least to
enter in the market. Some interesting things, very ego scattered and then, in
the end, we were faced in the 1960s while too girls were painting their naked
body. Certainly there were spaces, themes, interesting works that left us well
hope, but in general we expected, from the so-called independents, something
more or different. On the other hand, the party was a little disappointing.
Artissima: The largest art fair in Italy,
instead, leaves no room for doubt. An enormity, which we didn't remember so
great, of galleries and significant artists. In this sense, thanks to the work
of the previous curator (Cosulich Canarutto) and the present (Bonacossa), the
labyrinth becomes more complicated and settles somewhere on the border between
an exhibition (exhibitions) and a fair. It is in a range variable from
about ten to some hundred of thousand euros, but in this interval there is
everything. If one can buy a Hirst, he hardly does it in a fair. The most
famous galleries, many Italians, the best-selling artists. Turn around the
various colorful paths and you'll find Christo and Fabre and Zhijie. We can
then discuss the prizes and whom they are assigned, but all in all we can also
be grateful for some sort of Stendhal syndrome that catches you, sometimes,
along the way.
What did we notice?
First and
foremost, a large number of women who, for us as a collective, are
certainly important. Women's artists, galleries around the world run by women,
a curatorial and organizational group of women. Even in the historical section.
We've seen side by side a series of Gina Pane photos packed, probably because
they were sold.
The drawing section: Is it worthwhile to set up a new section dedicated
to this art form? We are in doubt. Having a dedicated space has encouraged the
galleries to propose this type of work, enhancing its presence and increasing
its importance. Some galleries have brought works that probably would otherwise
have left home. But what are the works that could not be anywhere else? And, on
the other hand, drawings and photos, which cost less, at a fair we would have
seen them anyway. Also at "The others" the independent spaces must
offered photos and drawings if they wanted to sell something.
Some
continuity in languages. Let's remove some surplus things, which we do not
explain at a fair, but in most cases we are faced with a shared language, in
the Market. It is not that we don't see the differences between the artists or
the galleries. Between an Iraqi artist and a Finnish, a US gallery and an
Ukrainian there are obvious discontinuities. Yet, there is something, a
background, difficult to explain in a few words, that we find evenly in all the
proposals. Confirming us, a little, in the intuition that current art is not
configurated as a temporal fact, artists who work right now, but as a single
large movement that the globalization makes world-wide. Even in futurism, in
fact, there were differences between the artists, even if they were recognized
in a project. Contemporaryism as a movement without a manifesto, based more on
the connections and uniformities that the Market allows. If one is lost in the
path, marked by colored lines, it is difficult to find the right way. Between
the purple and the yellow on the ground, between dialogues and the future,
there is a relative expressive difference.
There
remain the doubt what the difference between a curator of an exhibition and a
fair like this one. For the first there isn't a Market problem (at least in the
immediatly, then certain is around the corner) in the other you have to be in
the Market. The first is often funded, the second need a fundrasing. Is
it so strange to prefer Artissima?
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