Between Exhibition and Fair / Entre chien et loup, International Symposium, February 2-3 ,2018 (original) (raw)

The importance of the re-contextualization of an art fair, in “The Exhibitionist”, December 2017

The exhibitionist, 2017

The Exhibitionist is partnering with the Artissima art fair for the 2017 iteration of Artissima Live, which invites international publications to be in residence during the course of the fair, to publish about the art, programs, and events taking place over the course of four days in the city of Turin, . Alongside the editors of ATP Diary (Milan), Artdependence Magazine (Antwerp), Aujourd'hui Magazine (Lisbon), Fruit of the Forest (Milan and Miami), and Kabul Magazine (Milan), The Exhibitionist will publishing columns, essays, and interviews highlighting the work of curators, artists, and others involved in Artissima 2017. As a journal focused on curatorial practice and the history of exhibitions, The Exhibitionist will aim to examine various forms of curatorial labor visible at the fair, consider the historical contexts that the fair itself aims to reconsider, and think about the art fair as a particular form of exhibition. Here, curator and art historian Vittoria Martini elaborates on the Deposito d'Arte Italiano Presente, a curated section conceived for Artissima 2017. Organized by Martini and Ilaria Bonacossa, Artissima's Director, Deposito d'Arte Italiano Presente reconsiders the history of Italian art since 1994, the year in which Artissima was founded. Through works by 124 artists made in the past twenty-three years, Deposito d'Arte Italiano Presente offers an object-based archive of contemporary Italian art. Through a series of four texts published over the course of the fair's four days, Martini will explore the art historical context of Turin, the legacy and influence of Arte Povera on the Italian scene, and Artissima's role as a catalyst within contemporary Italian art since the 1990s.

"On Exhibition", Kaleidoscope magazine, Milan, 2009/2012

From 2009 to 2012 Kaleidoscope magazine has been publishing a column devoted to history of exhibitions, curated and written by Paola Nicolin. In each issue an historical exhibition has been presented and discussed to laid out the problems confronting today’s artists and curators. During this period of time, the column has been featuring the following exhibition projects: This is Tomorrow (Whitechapel Gallery, London 1956), Information (Museum of Modern Art, New York 1971), Documenta X (Kassel 1997), Urs Fischer (New Museum, New York 2009), The Aids Timeline (University Art Museum, Berkeley 1989), Arte Povera + Azioni Povere (Amalfi 1968), Ce Qui Arrive (Fondation Cartier, Paris 2002), Triennale 1968 (Triennale Milan 1968), The New-Jeff Koons (New Museum, New York 1980), Carlo Mollino Maniera Moderna (Haus der Kunst, Munich 2011), African Negro Art (Museum of Modern Art, New York 1935).

Art in the Digital during and after Covid: Aura and Apparatus of Online Exhibitions

Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2020

The public health measures that were put in place to contain COVID-19 impacted the lives of people and institutions alike. For its global impact and transformation, the pandemic has the potential to be classified as a mega-event. Such radical events have become great opportunities to the testing of new technologies and forms of organisation, (Masi, 2016) that might in the future become prevalent. The impact of the pandemic was particularly felt in the contemporary art world, as the entire cultural activity was suspended. During this period, art institutions and collectives around the world reacted by adapting and providing alternative materials online. This paper aims at reflecting upon the challenges facing the exhibition of contemporary art online. Following Boris Groys’ (2016) actualisation of Walter Benjamin, we problematise how the digital reproduction of art affects the aura of an artwork. Proposing a critique of the apparatus of digital platforms, we analyse how the digital reproduces and enhances ideological structures that overpass the whole of society. For that purpose we analyse how four different organisations (an artist-run space, an art gallery, a museum and an art biennale) have migrated their activity to online platforms. The case-studies will allow a broad understanding of the different approaches available – with some radically taking advantage of the digital environment, and others merely digitising the role taken henceforth by printed catalogues.

New Media Art World in World Fairs and Exposition Universelles

The aim of this essay is to provide a historical analysis of the relationship between industry and art around the time of Industrial Exhibitions and World’s Fairs. The study goes back in history in order to evince “new media art” initiatives promoted by exhibitors, underlining how the art world associated with that category began to be formed not in the contemporary art scene, but during those popular events held in several cities around the globe since the mid-19th century. Of course the expression "new media art" never appeared in the historical period covered by this essay and was introduced much later [1]. Yet the term is useful, because it suggests how some of World's Fair initiatives anticipated much of the "new media art" discourse since the 1980s. And instead of arguing that those initiatives was only a means to serve economic ends of the capitalist system, the essay ask whether the industry had unintentionally contributed, during those media art “protofestivals”, to unforeseen co-operations between art, science and technology.

"Venice Biennale 2017: Salon des Réfugiés" in Media-N, 2018.

Media-N Vol 14 No 1 (2018): CAA Conference Edition 2018 (Reviews and Reports), Journal of New Media Caucus (NMC) Affiliate Society of College Art Association (CAA), 2018

This single review of a sprawling international exhibition takes as a conceit the comparison of three Pavilions within the 2017 Venice Biennale-that of Korea, the United States, and Antarctica. The author seizes on the opportunity afforded by the esteemed event's organization around nation-states to reflect on the radical ways in which the exhibited artists are engaged with the distinct challenges and struggles of their respective homes (or non-homes). This essay is therefore an attempt to culturally compare with nuanced interpretation, as a way to stay close to the formation and ramification of world culture today. To diversify the potential in the read, the piece calls to unfold in rhetoric of postcolonial terms, related to new media scholarship.

Exhibition as Mass Communication

Generally, the literature on mass communication research ignores exhibition; that is, it does not investigate and provide any theories about the communicative function of trade show exhibits, museum exhibitions, and international expositions, particularly in their most advanced forms as multimedia spatial formations. This paper considers the reasons for the lacunae particularly in critical approaches to historical, cultural and philosophical perspectives on exhibition. It also identifies fields of research that the academic community are encouraged to explore.

Throwing Voices: The Commodification of Culture, from Art Biennials to Celebrity

2019

This paper presents discussions around both the socio-political and cultural acts of 'speaking for' and 'speaking through' others and how Common Culture, as an artist's group, create dialogues around this through their practice in relation to the specific contexts in which their artworks are produced. The New El Dorado and the context of the art biennial. The New El Dorado is a single screen video work commissioned for Manifesta 8 by the curatorial collective Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF). The full title for this edition of Manifesta was: The European Biennial of Contemporary Art; region of Murcia (Spain) in dialogue with Northern Africa. "as a direct consequence of geopolitical issues in the region where it took place" (Manifesta.org, 2010). We were alerted, at the very outset, that the Manifesta Foundation's ambitions for the Biennial extended to encouraging artists to initiate dialogue with the culture and politics of the host region of Murcia, and engage in "dialogue with Northern Africa"-which we took to understand as a vague invitation to explore Europe's complex relationship with Africa. As three white British artists our validity to speak about either the host region or its relationship to another cultural and political region was certainly questionable and problematic. Whilst flattered to be invited, participation in a project so confidently committed to the instrumentalization of art immediately raised questions as to whether we should, or even could participate in such an enterprise. As Linda Alcoff (2003, p. 5) states "Is the discursive practice of speaking for others ever a valid practice, and, if so, what are the criteria for validity?"

The Twenty-First Century and the Mega Shows: A Curators' Roundtable

Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2008

Prior to that, since the mid-eighties we have seen a steady rise in the number of exhibitions on African art, and, more specifically, on contemporary African art. Consequently we have witnessed the proliferation of exhibition catalogues and critical articles both validating and contesting the various discourses projected by these exhibitions. Examples are numerous. They are mostly what is referred to as "mega" shows and art festivals dedicated to contemporary