Nineteenth Giornata del Contemporaneo
07.10.2023 from 11:00 to 18:00
Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea participates in the Nineteenth Contemporary Art Day promoted by AMACI
Saturday, October 7, 2023, 11 am – 6 pm
Alice Visentin, winner of the first edition of the Collective Art Prize, will be in conversation with Marcella Beccaria. The conversation will be introduced by Renata Novarese, President of the Friends of the Rivoli Castle. Maria Adelaide Marchesoni, President of Collective, will join the event.
Theater, 5 pm
Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea is part of the Nineteenth Giornata del Contemporaneo, the major event promoted by AMACI – the Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums – with the support of the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture and the collaboration of the General Directorate for Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and the patronage of the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, UPI – Union of Italian Provinces, ANCI – National Association of Italian Municipalities, and ICOM Italy.
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, the public will be able to visit the Museum, exhibitions, and participate in initiatives organized to celebrate the Nineteenth Giornata del Contemporaneo.
On the occasion of Nineteenth Giornata del Contemporaneo, the Museum is organizing a conversation with the artist Alice Visentin, winner of the first edition of the Collective International Art Prize for the Rivoli Castle, and Marcella Beccaria, Deputy Director, Chief Curator and Curator of Collections, Vice President of AMACI. The conversation will be introduced by Renata Novarese, President of the Friends of the Rivoli Castle. Maria Adelaide Marchesoni, President of Collective, the Italian association of contemporary art collectors established in 2019, will also join the event.
The event will take place in the Museum Theater at 5 pm.
The conversation will be an opportunity to present the Collective Prize for the first time. The biennial initiative in 2022 allowed the entry into the Museum’s permanent collection, as a donation from Collective members, of the work “Banda di fiori (Notturno),” 2021, by Alice Visentin. Rooted deeply in her native territory, Visentin’s art draws inspiration from oral traditions, fragments of history, and fantastical elements. “Banda di fiori (Notturno)” is an important series of paintings composed of 5 canvases. Emerging from the darkness of night, the flowers depicted in each canvas become a “metaphor for the human condition, connected to the physical and transcendental universe. Through the natural image of flowers and the night, both archetypes and symbols of a collective unconscious,” the artist states, “I imagined the roots descending into the earth, while leaves and petals extend upwards, towards star-filled skies. Among the stems, leaves, and petals, plants offer us tiny phrases and words as if they were oracles or advice.”
Located on the third floor of the Museum, the exhibition Artists in a Time of War: From Francisco Goya to Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Lee Miller, Zoran Mušič, Alberto Burri, Fabio Mauri, Bracha L. Ettinger, Anri Sala, Michael Rakowitz, Dinh Q. Lê, Vu Giang Huong, Rahraw Omarzad, and Nikita Kadan, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Marianna Vecellio, presents over 140 works by 39 artists created by those who were or are in war. Empathetic and poignant, they express discomfort but also great humanity. The exhibition takes inspiration from Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War), 1810-1815, by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes and explores the theme of war and post-traumatic subjectivity through historical works and new projects by important contemporary artists. “Artists at War” includes loans from significant Italian and international public and private institutions, as well as two new commissions: unpublished works created for the occasion by Afghan artist Rahraw Omarzad (Kabul, 1964) and Ukrainian artist Nikita Kadan (Kiev, 1982). Both artists share a practice linked to cultural promotion, offering a message of great emotional, human, social, and political impact. Originating from conflict scenarios and profound geopolitical changes, their practices invite us to reflect on the importance of finding narratives of care and peace in creative expression.
The exhibition Renato Leotta: CONCERTINO per il mare, located in the north tower on the second floor of the Museum, presents for the first time in Italy the project that won the Italian Council Edition X, an international competition promoted by the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture in support of Italian contemporary creativity. The project CONCERTINO per il mare is rooted in the observation of the Mediterranean seabed ecosystem. Proposing a possible form of interspecies communication, it attempts to translate the internal structure of Posidonia oceanica leaves into a musical score to be performed as a concert audible to the human ear. Bringing attention to the vital importance of an endangered ecosystem, CONCERTINO per il mare invites us to listen to stories of migration, adaptation, encounters, and struggles for the survival of Posidonia through time, from a distant past to an uncertain future. The work was first presented in September 2022 at the 17th Istanbul Biennial, where it was installed in the Hammam Çinili, a 16th-century Ottoman building.
A comprehensive artistic project, including an extensive research phase across multiple Mediterranean coastal sites, CONCERTINO per il mare has generated a sound installation, experimental photographic works, and Ondina, a concert-opera. On display at the Museum, will be the sound installation curated by Marcella Beccaria and presented for the first time in dialogue with a series of photographic prints created by the artist using experimental techniques. As part of the project, Ondina: Concert per il mare in tre movimenti, curated by Marianna Vecellio, will be performed by the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Giampaolo Pretto. The live concert will take place at the Concert Hall of the Giuseppe Verdi State Conservatory of Music in Turin (Saturday, November 4, 9 pm), following its debut in September 2022 with musicians from the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra during the opening days of the Istanbul Biennial.