CAROLYN CHRISTOV-BAKARGIEV | NEW DIRECTOR TURIN ART

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev appointed Director of GAM Torino and Castello di Rivoli

The Board of Trustees of Fondazione Torino Musei and of Castello di Rivoli announces the appointment of Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev as Director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino, commencing on January 1, 2016.

Christov-Bakargiev succeeds Danilo Eccher and Beatrice Merz, who acted as Directors of GAM (from 2009 to 2014) and Castello di Rivoli (from 2010 to 2014), respectively.

“We are delighted that Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has agreed to become the new director of both museums,” said Patrizia Asproni, President of the Fondazione Torino Musei Board. “Her experience in international cultural institutions, her curatorial leadership and extensive knowledge of the art world, as well as her scholarly credentials, are a great fit for the new course of GAM Torino and Castello di Rivoli.”

 “I am honored and pleased to serve as director of two institutions as wonderful as GAM and Castello di Rivoli, and to take part in the process of configuring their merger,” statedChristov-Bakargiev. “I would like to thank the Fondazione Torino Musei and its President Patrizia Asproni for entrusting me with this task. The outstanding collection of contemporary art and unique historical galleries of the 18th-century Rivoli castle, located on the foothills of the Alps in the Piedmont region, has been home to many ground-breaking exhibitions since its opening in 1984. The broad 19^th-, 20^th- and 21^st-century collections of the GAM, hosted in an avant-garde 1950s building, represent the memory of modernity for the industrious city of Turin since the opening of its first city museum in 1863. The bringing together of these exceptional institutions prompts a number of important questions. At this moment in history, characterized by the digital revolution and great scientific progress, but also by the abstraction of experience in the virtual realm and the contradictions of globalization and environmental crises, how can we poetically imagine through art and its alliances with other fields – the sciences, storytelling, philosophy, amongst others – a new set of worldviews for the 21st century? How can such broad questions be made commensurate with the particulars of our daily lives? What is the role of a museum today, and how can it provide for and be nurtured by its local community and art lovers worldwide and – especially – by the artists without whose creations our cultures would be unimaginable? Before taking up the post of director of both institutions on January 1, 2016, I will reflect on these questions during a period of great anticipation and preparation.”

Christov-Bakargiev was appointed from a list of candidates proposed by an international panel including Gabriella Belli, Director of the Fondazione Musei Civici of Venice; Bernard Blistène, Director of the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Francesco Manacorda, Artistic Director of Tate Liverpool. She was selected from amongst 171 applicants.

 Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (Ridgewood, New Jersey, 1957) is one of the most authoritative contemporary art curators. She is drafting the 14^th Istanbul Biennale (2015) and is  Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University, Evanston IL (2013–2015) as well as Getty Visiting Scholar (2015). Previously, she was Artistic Director of dOCUMENTA (13) (2008–2013),  interim Director of the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (2009), Artistic Director of the 16^th Biennale of Sydney (2006–2008), Chief Curator of Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (2002–2008), and Senior Curator at MoMA P.S. 1 in New York (1999–2001). She is the author of many books including Arte Povera (1999, Phaidon Press) and has curated important exhibitions, includingFaces in the Crowd (2005), William Kentridge (2004), Pierre Huyghe (2004), Franz Kline (2004), The Moderns (2003),Animations (2001), Janet Cardiff: A Survey of Works including collaborations with George Bures Miller (2001), Around 1984: A Look at Art in the Eighties (2000), and Greater New York (2000).

 The press conference on the appointment of Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev will take place on Tuesday, September 15, 2015.

 Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, 2015.

Photo: Ilgin Erarslan Yanmaz.
Courtesy: Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV)

http://www.castellodirivoli.org

ETTORE SPALLETTI | E' UN GIORNO COSI' BIANCO, COSI' BIANCO

Maxxi  Roma  |  GAM  Torino  |  Madre  Napoli

Ettore Spalletti 

E’ UN GIORNO COSì BIANCO, COSì BIANCO 

Ettore Spalletti è l’artista a cui il Maxxi a Roma, la GAM a Torino e il Madre a Napoli rendono omaggio con la mostra ampia e complessa E’ UN GIORNO COSì BIANCO, COSì BIANCO, strutturata sulle tre sedi, con tre mostre distinte ma complementari, che si propongono anche come esperimento di una collaborazione tra istituzioni – una museo comunale, uno regionale, uno nazionale – unite in uno sforzo comune per un obbiettivo condiviso.

Oltre 70 opere, tre musei, per mostrare la varietà, complessità e profondità della ricerca di Ettore Spalletti, maestro dell’arte contemporanea italiana che nell’arco di quarant’anni ha sviluppato un linguaggio tra contemporaneità e classicità nella pittura, nella scultura e nelle installazioni ambientali.

Al MAXXI di Roma, dal 13 marzo fino al 14 settembre 2014.

Sono 17 le opere che Spalletti presenta in relazione con l’architettura che le ospita in un’esperienza visiva nello spazio.

Sulle pareti della sala, il colore si muove lungo tavole di grande formato come le Parole di colore grigioazzurro, Parole di colore, rosa tenue, Parole di colore, rosso azzurro realizzate nel 2011.

Al centro della galleria campeggia l’opera che dà il titolo al progetto delle tre mostre: Un giorno così bianco, così bianco, 2014. Un volume di quattro metri per lato che contiene 11 quadri bianchi, connubio tra pittura e scultura e viceversa.

GAM di Torino dal 27 marzo fino al 15 giugno 2014

Qui si ricostruire l’atmosfera dello studio di Spalletti attraverso la poetica dell’artista ricreando l’energia che si respira in quell’ambiente attraverso la scelta dei materiali, studia e la trasformazione dei pigmenti.

Le opere che popolano lo studio di Spalletti vanno dagli anni ’80 ad oggi in una dimensione magica ricreata negli spazi espositivi del museo.

Tra i circa 25 lavori in mostra un’opera, proveniente da una importante collezione privata belga, Coppa, 1982 e Disegno, mano libera, un disegno di 8 metri del 1981, presentato in anteprima a Torino.

Al MADRE di Napoli dal 13 aprile fino al 18 agosto 2014

La mostra al MADRE presenta circa 40 opere che ripercorrono, occupando tutto il terzo piano del museo, l’intera articolazione della ricerca dell’artista, dagli esordi negli anni Sessanta fino alla produzione più recentesenza un ordine cronologico.

Ci sono: la grande installazione-scultura Foglie del 1969 e le maquette architettoniche per progetti, una serie di lavori come: Presenza stanza, 1978, sul rapporto tra pittura scultura e colore nello spazio; Colonna di colore, 1979, una solitaria presenza scultorea che trasforma il colore in pilastro dell’architettura; Contatto, 1976, con pigmento come pulviscolo. Nella dialettica tra astrazione e figurazione, forma e concetto ruotano in opere come La bella addormentata, 1975, Montagna riflessa, 1985 e Bella addormentata, Vesuvio, 1988.

Altre opere illustrano le potenzialità estetiche ed espressive dei singoli materiali impiegati da Spalletti – come l’alabastro, il marmo, la foglia d’oro, la carta e il pigmento di colore puro.

La collaborazione tra GAM, MADRE e MAXXI sarà accompagnata da una pubblicazione (Electa) realizzata su progetto dello Studio Spalletti, che ripercorre l’intera carriera dell’artista, con testi critici di Carlos Basualdo, Danilo Eccher, Gabriele Guercio, Anna Mattirolo, Gloria Moure Cao, Alessandro Rabottini, Andrea Viliani.

Ettore Spalletti ha esposto nei principali musei del mondo, sia in mostre collettive sia personali. Oltre ad aver rappresentato l’Italia alla Biennale di Venezia del 1997, l’artista ha preso parte ad altre tre edizioni della stessa manifestazione nel 1982, nel 1993 e nel 1995 e a due edizioni di Documenta a Kassel nel 1982 e nel 1993, la South London Gallery di Londra e il MUHKA di Anversa,1995, il Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, 1996, il Musée de Strasbourg e il Museo di Capodimonte di Napoli, 1999, la Fundacion “la Caixa” di Madrid, 2000, l’Henry Moore Institute di Leeds, 2005, l’Accademia di Francia – Villa Medici a Roma, 2006, il Museum Kurhaus di Kleve, 2009 e la Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna di Roma, 2010.

A. M. D. P.

http://annamariadipaolo2.myblog.it

FANG LIJUN | GAM - TURIN

Fang Lijun, 2007.4.6, 2007. Oil on canvas, 180 × 140 cm.*

Fang Lijun
The Precipice over the Clouds

22 June–30 September 2012

GAM – Civic Gallery of
Modern and Contemporary Art, TurinVia Magenta 31 – 10128 Turin, Italy
Hours: Tue–Sun, 10–6pm
Last admission 5pm

T +39 011 4429518/630
gam@fondazionetorinomusei.itcomunicazionegam@fondazionetorinomusei.it

www.gamtorino.it

Share on google_plusone

Share on emailShare

Curated by Danilo Eccher

The GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino opens its summer programme offering its exhibition space for the first great solo exhibition in Italy of Chinese artist Fang Lijun (b. 1963; Handan, China; lives and works in Beijing).

An acclaimed artist in his country, Fang Lijun was one of the main exponents of Cynical Realism, a movement which developed in China in the 1990s focusing on the analysis of Chinese socio-political history in the 20th century, with a particular reference to the Cultural Revolution, up to the current economic boom, dealt with sharp and uncanny humour and irony.

GAM presents a momentous exhibition, bringing forth the artist’s rich and inventive figuration, with a selection of around 30 monumental works which belong to his recent production, from 2006 to today, showcasing some works never shown before or carried out especially for this exhibition.

Displayed in the museum’s two exhibition venues, the Exhibition area on the first floor, and the GAM Underground project on the underground floor, this exhibition welcomes the visitor with a powerful visual impact, and succeeds in recreating the imaginary worlds of an artist who has devoted his life searching for the union of Mankind with nature. The immense, whirling skies studded with insects and birds, mice, butterflies, often peopled with human faces, both joyful and desperate, are the first subjects the public will be confronted with. The paintings are magnificent, displayed according to impressions without following a chronological order, even if the peculiarity with Fang’s works is that they do not have a title despite not being Untitled, instead his production is marked by the date (sometimes only the year, or the year, month, and day). Hence, for instance, in 2005-2007 clouds open up forming a whirlwind vortex, swallowing up sleeping children who lean on faint seagulls created by the very clouds.

In the large 17-metre-long painting bearing the same 2005-2007 title the vortex is made of birds and billions of insects which tend to reach an undefined point on the horizon. Once more a child is the protagonist of 2007.4.6, a work chosen to be the guiding image of the show. A newborn plunged into dark water is desperately crying and is surrounded by colourful dragonflies, small but annoying creatures which may represent future trouble in the existence.

If on the first floor the skies and Mankind are predominant, the central room of the exhibition area introduces the theme which will then be analysed in the Underground Project, i.e. the intertwining between life and death.

Death is indeed the main subject of some of Fang Lijun’s works, metaphorically represented as mice and bats (Untitled 2011) or maggots (2006.7.1), or confirmed by the presence of lifeless bodies, corpses of famous people, protagonists of the Chinese Cultural Revolution or of Tian’anmen Square repression. In 2010, a large painting displayed on the first floor almost 9 metres wide, one recognises among the dead Lenin’s face and the victims of 1871 Paris Bloody Week. However, these works maintain a glimmer of life, represented by the sun rising, by shiny jewels, or children and people celebrating.

The exhibition also features some new works finished in the weeks preceding the opening, such as2011-2012, a city of sky-scrapers enveloped in a dark fog, with one glimmer of dim light allowing to see the usual myriads of colourful butterflies together with dark mice and bats.

This exhibition is curated by Danilo Eccher, Director of GAM, and it is carried out in a successful cooperation with major Chinese institutions, such as the NAMOC (National Art Museum in Beijing) and the Misheng Art Museum in Shanghai.

Fang Lijun has displayed at over 100 exhibitions, including several solo shows at international museums like The Japan Foundation in Tokyo, The Staatliche Museum in Berlin, The Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan. In addition to collective exhibitions at institutions like the New York MoMA, the SFMoMA in San Francisco, the IMMA in Dublin, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, he also exhibited at two editions of Venice Biennale, in 1993 and 1990.

His works are displayed in important international private and museum collections, including, for instance, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne—one of the first European institutions, together with the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, to buy his works—the Saatchi Gallery in London, the MoMA in New York, and many other museums and institutions in China.

The catalogue published by Charta gathers texts by European and Chinese critics. A rich colour section, around 200 pages, is devoted to Fang Lijun’s entire artistic production, from the early works to the new ones displayed at GAM.

Media contactDaniela Matteu / Tanja Gentilini
T +39 011 4429523
daniela.matteu@fondazionetorinomusei.itufficio.stampa@fondazionetorinomusei.it

*Image above:
Fang Lijun, 2007.4.6, 2007. Oil on canvas, 180 × 140 cm.
The Aegidius Collection. Courtesy Alexander Ochs Galleries, Berlin / Beijing.

http://www.e-flux.com/announcements