A.B.O. THEATRON. L’Arte o la Vita

A.B.O. THEATRON. Art or Life’ is part of the overall project Espressioni which investigates the multiple forms of expressivity that cross the history of art and society seeking an understanding of “Expression” that transcends the Eurocentric canon and any unique artistic movement.

Following the exhibition dedicated to Harald Szeemann in 2019, organized in collaboration with the Getty Research Institute of Los Angeles, this exhibition, organized by the CRRI (Castello di Rivoli Research Institute), focuses on Achille Bonito Oliva and constitutes the second chapter of an overall project that Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and CRRI are dedicating to the most prominent contemporary art curators of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

Starting from his training and activity in the field of visual poetry in the late 1960s, Bonito Oliva established a relation between some of the most prominent artists of the second half of the 20^th century who contributed to the definition of radical new avenues of research, such as, in the late 1970s, those connected to Italian Transavanguardia internationally referred to as “New Expressionism” in the 1980s. Bonito Oliva is known for having launched the neo expressionist art movements through his presentation of their work at the ‘Aperto ‘80’ section of the Venice Biennale in 1980. He later also directed the overall 1993 edition of the famed Biennale of Venice.

With his 1976 book L’ideologia del traditore. Arte, maniera, manierismo (The Ideology of the Traitor: Art, Manner and Mannerism,) Bonito Oliva analyzed how Mannerism created a passage from the principle of creation in the Renaissance to that of citation, as a response of the artist to the crisis of society: the artist lost a sense of centrality and became a lateral figure, with respect to science and technology. This recalls the figure of the traitor who looks at the world, and does not accept it, who would like to change it but can only act with skepticism, without naive optimism. Similarly to the early 1500s, the 1970s where a period of ideological, economic, political and social crisis. In European culture, Mannerism developed in the early 1500s, just like the Transavanguardia developed in late 1970s and it was Bonito Oliva himself who made the analogy between Mannerism and the Transavanguardia.

Throughout Bonito Oliva’s activity, his critical writings and exhibition contributions, his curatorial flair, and intellectual provocations together constitute a uniquely dynamic output characterized by an ongoing interrelation between word and image, performativity and communication, and by a focus on the increasing intersections between art and life, art and other fields, which Bonito Oliva called “nomadic transversality.” 

Major artworks on display include Pino Pascali’s Primo piano labbra (1965), which was showcased in Bonito Oliva’s first exhibition at Libreria-Galleria Guida in Naples in 1966. The exhibition also includes key pieces such as Lo Spirato (1968-73) by Luciano Fabro, which was presented at ‘Contemporanea’ in 1973, and a series of important Transavanguardia works, such as Silenzioso mi ritiro a dipingere un quadro (1977) by Mimmo Paladino, Cani con la lingua a spasso (1980) by Enzo Cucchi, Sinfonia incompiuta (1980) by Sandro Chia, Il cerchio di Milarepa (1982) by Francesco Clemente and Testa dell’artista cosmico a Torino (1984-85) by Nicola De Maria. The exhibition also includes La Luna (1968) by Fabio Mauri, part of the ‘Vitalità del negativo’ 1970 exhibition; Metrocubo d’Infinito (1966) by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Articolazione totale (1962) by Francesco Lo Savio, which was seen at ‘Minimalia’ in 1997-99, as well as TV-Buddha Duchamp-Beuys (1989) by Nam June Paik, included in ‘Tribù dell’Arte’, 2001. Also notable is Fountain (1917-64) by Marcel Duchamp.

Main Sponsor GUCCI

Media Partner Rai Cultura e Rai 5

Exhibition realized with the contribution primarily of the Regione Piemonte and Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo. Catalog was realized thanks to the kind support of the Benefactor Gianfranco D’Amato

As usual, some of the works on display are on permanent loan at Castello di Rivoli from the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT. For this we thank the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT.

On the occasion of this exhibition, GUCCI has designed the uniforms for the exhibition’s “guardian angels,” the gallery assistants who welcome visitors and take care for artworks while on display. Like gardeners in an imaginary park, the assistants (who in the past would be called “guards”), are renamed in French “jardiniers du théatre” (gardeners of the theater) for this project. These “guardian angels” or gardeners will be dressed in a sage-green uniform, signalling the exhibition as a walk through a garden and creatively accompanying the project by transforming the traditional museum-sponsor relationship. The main sponsor in this case takes part in the creation of the exhibition design, highlighting the presence of the essential but often invisible workers of the art world. This project draws inspiration from the GUCCI February 2020 fashion show when the creative director Alessandro Michele and his team wore uniforms, thus providing the audience with a glimpse of the backstage work connected to the presentation of “The Ritual” collection.

Photo Valentina Sommariva | Courtesy Gucci