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Curatorial portfolio by Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano (Associazione E)
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STATEMENT
Associazione E was established in 2004 thanks to the joint efforts of Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano. The core of the couple opens itself to relational dimensions different every time, which lead to a work sensitive to the imper-sonal. Listening, the gift, the invitation and the proxy are the principals on which a series of collective artistic operations are founded. Through a discovery of new forms of patronage, the artistic and curatorial practice converge one into the other, and a policy of the project takes precedence over those of the individual
works and authors.
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SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Invited to the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2008, Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano subsequently initiated as curators their own residency programs: Spot – studio dal vivo, promoted by the Venice City Hall (2010), and Mirroring, sup-ported by the Emirates Foundation (2011). During the same period, they were also included in the curatorial team of Art Enclosures, a project for implementing African artists’ mobility instituted by the Fondazione di Venezia. In 2010 Associazione E was selected for taking part to the Cultural Enterprise Management Training Course pro-moted by the Pistoletto Foundation and the Santagata Center. After participating to Miltos Manetas’ 2nd Internet Pavilion for the 54th Venice Biennale, the curatorial duo directed A special day, a one-year workshop about queer memories funded by the Na-tional Department for Equal Opportunities and culminated in the exhibition Io, Tu,
Lui, Lei at the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation in 2012.
Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano lectured at Ca’ Foscari University, IUAV Uni-versity, FAI (Vicenza) and MACRO (Rome) amongst others and collaborated with in-stitutions and foundations such as the Swiss Institute of Rome, Fondazione March, Nuova Icona, Fondazione Giorgio Cini Onlus, Les Rencontres, Alliance Française - Ile de France. Before presenting Caronte #1 - L’Ile flottante at the Sinopale 4 - Interna-tional Sinop Biennial, Associazione E contributed to Collecting the Future - Arts and
Culture As A Catalyser For Urban Development, Sinop (TK).
CV (selection 2008-2012)CURATORSHIP>>> Ongoing >>> Prima Visione. Residency program by the National Gallery of Cosenza. Palazzo Arnone. Cosenza. 2012-2013Sinopale - International Sinop Biennial. L’Ile Flottante. Sinop (Tk). 2012. [with pubblication]Nibiru. Double solo-show by Nicola Genovese and Sabina Grasso. Mars, Milan. 2012. [with pubblication]Io Tu Lui Lei. Final exhibition of the project “A special day”. Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa. Venice. 2012. [with pubblication]Sameage. Double solo-show by Alaa Edris and Valentina Roselli on the occasion of Mirroring - residency program for UAE artists. Venice. 2011.Mirroring. Residency Program for UAE artists. Emirates Foundation. Venice. 2011.Art Enclosures. Curatorial support for the third and fourth cycle of residency for African artists. Artists: Jabulani Maseko, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Victoria Udondian, Tam-lyn Young. Fondazione di Venezia, Venice, 2010-2011.The Channelers.Associazione E @ Independents. Special event at ArtVerona Fair. Verona. 2011. [with pubblication]Dolomitenhof Resort. Group show for Dolomiti contemporanee, Sass Muss. 2011.A little out of my sunshine. Artistic and curatorial project for “Collecting The Future”. European Cultural Association. Sinop. Tk. 2011. [with pubblication]Tutulma / Eclipse. Solo show by Daniele Pezzi, Oratorio di S. Ludovico – Nuova Icona, Venice. 2011.The sea of fate. Solo show by Mehmet Gunyeli. Co-curated with Beral Madra and Vittorio Urbani. Oratorio di S. Ludovico – Nuova Icona, Venice. 2011.A Special Day. One-year workshop about queer memories. Venice. 2011-2012.2nd Internet Pavilion by Miltos Manetas. A performative event for the 54. Venice Biennale. Accademia di Bellearti, Venice. 2011. Gli Amatori. A film in progress produced by Fondazione March and Lago Spa. 2010.Spot n.3: Rachele Maistrello. Residency program and fiinal exhibition. Sala del Camino, Venice. 2010.Spot n.2: The Island. Residency program and final exhibion. Co-curated with Pier Luigi Tazzi. Artists: André Eugene, Jean Hérard Celeur, Daniele Geminiani, Naomi Rincón Gallardo, Gabriel Rossell Santillán, Remo Salvadori, Matthew Stone, Nico Vascellari, José Antonio Vega Macotela. Sala del Camino, Venice. 2010.Spot n.1: Andrea Kvas. Residency program and Final exhibition. In collaboration with Boston University studio program. Sala del Camino, Venice. 2010.Il Trentesimo Anno. Solo show by Giulia Nomis. Galleria upp, Venice. 2010. [with pubblication]Spot n.0: Giulia Nomis. Residency program and final exhibition. Sala del Camino, Venice. 2010.Partenze & Arrivi. A travelling festival on artistic production. Boston University studios, Bevilacqua La Masa studios. Venice. 2009.Chambre double. Final exhibition of the residency. Cité Internationale des Arts. Paris, France. 2008. [with pubblication]
LECTURES AND PARTICIPATIONSProdigy of Nature by Chiara Fumai at Documenta (13). Text written for the performance and the installation by Chiara Fumai. Karlasue Park, Kassel, 2012.Macro - Electronic Orphanage. The ruins of the internet. Dialogue with Andreas Angelidakis. Curated by Miltos Manetas. MACRO. Roma. 2012.Prevision/preview. Lecture within Agnes Kohlmeyer’s laboratory. Iuav University. Venice. 2012.From Boom to Doom. Lecture within Marta Kuzma’s laboratory. Iuav University. Venice. 2011.Mirroring. Public presentation of the residency program. Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice. 2011.Unfinished. Intervention at “Collecting the Future” public academy. Sinop, TK. 2011. [with pubblication]Zona @ Independents. Participation at three panel discussions in collaboration with Fondazione March, Galleria Contemporaneo, Lago Film Fest, Nuova Icona, S.a.L.E. Docks, Sottobosco, Cecilia Canziani, Bert Theis, Astrid Wege. Verona. 2010.Les Rencontes: Third training seminar for Directors of Culture and Arts in Europe. Coordination of a seminar about new models of management for the arts. In col-laboration with European Cultural Foundation. Venice. 2010Him. Anestesie e Vaccini del Male Assoluto. Lecture about the use of Nazi symbols in contemporary art. FAI - Fondo Ambiente Italiano, Vicenza. 2010.The Island - Talk. Public conversation with Pier Luigi Tazzi. Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice. 2010.All In. Lecture within the “Management of Cultural Instituion” class by prof. Giorgio Busetto. Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, 2009.Venice-Paris. Lecture within the “Elements of Historiy of Videoart” class by prof. Guido Sartorelli. Università Ca’ Foscari. Venice. 2008.
RESIDENCIES AND PRIZESDemo/Movin’Up. Mobility prize by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities. 2012.Collecting the Future - curated by T. Melih Gorgun e Mahir Namur, Sinop (TK). 2009.La Squola. Residency program on cultural, artistic and creative entrepreneurship. Centro Studi Santagata and Pistoletto Foundation. Biella. 2010. [with pubblication]Lagostudio. Curated by Fondazione March and promoted by Lago SpA. Villa del Conte, Padova. 2010. [with pubblication]Cité Internationale des Arts – supported by the Mairie de Paris. 2008.
The IV Sinop Biennale features the work of more than 30 artists from all over the world, probing the obscurities of knowledge. Wisdom of Shadow: Art in the Era of Cor-rupted Information as a concept was the idea of the curator Isin Onol and was critically complemented by Aslı Çetinkaya, Elke Falat, Dimitrina Sevova, Janet Kaplan, Sean Kelly, Beral Madra, Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano (Associazione E).The Italian curatorial duo presents Caronte #1 – L’Ile Flottante a project by the artist Francesco Bertelé with Eddie Spanier. L’Ile flottante is a sometimes dangerous, artistic collaboration, which take place between the shores of the Black Sea, in some parts of the city of Sinop – the birth place of Diogene the Cynic – and will remain in the memories of inhabitants and visitors. The Italian team, guided by Francesco Bertelé, built up a floating monument that appears in the open sea. This ‘Ile Flottante’ (floating isle) resembles an ancient salvaged stone artefact emerging from the waters, and miraculously, not sinking.Thanks to an ancient Etrurian technique for cooking clay, the “discovery” challenges the seascape’s gravity, erecting itself in a vertical position and floating on the surface of the water. With the help of Sinop’s sailormen and their ships, l’Ile Flottante is now installed on the bank of the sea most exposed to unpredictable squalls. Here the swimmers often think they are bathing in a paradise, but actually their lives are tragically put at risk by the sea’s current. Once positioned, the clay mass then fulfils the main function of every monument: that of remembrance, oscillating between signs of danger, paying homage to the fallen, witness to an adventure, unexplainable apparition. It will be an iridescent, living symbol of contemporary mythology.It is not only the direct involvement of locals that contributes to the creation of legendary memories, but also the perceptible spread of sight and sound feeding the collective imagination. A special advertising campaign was diffused indeed in public spaces of the city. A billboard and more than 50 posters transformed Sinop in an outdoors blog. Speak-ers around the city, newspapers, radios, the internet and word of mouth broadcast tales and testimonies which are channelled as part of the dry land promotion element of the project: L’Ile Flottante Headquarters.Recalling robberies, relic swaps and forgeries that occurred many centuries ago between the Ottoman Empire and the modern European countries, this artistic operation is located right in the “corrupted information” era. Nevertheless fiction is not predominant, but rather the honest misunderstanding of reality, which we find at the foundation of every story. The project is supported by DEMO/MOVIN’UP 2012 by Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and GAI.
SINOPALE 4:L’Ile FlottanteInternational Sinop Biennial, Sinop, Tk, 2012.
Avrebbero potuto prendere il volo. Prima ancora di salire in aeroplano.Ognuno nel suo tronco di vento, agitati da un enorme phone per capelli.Se solo si fossero riempiti d’aria. Se l’avessero incorporata, come l’albume o come la panna.
Di isola in isola. Isole in isole.In cerca di un abbandono.Fluttuare, scendere, flottare, afondare.
Un po’ morire, per non cadere.
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They might have flown away. Even before getting the plane.Everyone in its stream of wind, waved by an enormous hairdrier.If only had they filled in with air. Had they whipped it in, like albumen or cream.
From island to island. Islands into islands.In search of an abandon.Fluttering, drifting, floating, sinking.
Almost like dying, not to fall down.
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Uçup gitmiş olabilirlerdi. Uçağa binmeden bile önce.Rüzgar akıntıtıssın içindeki herkes kacaman bir saç kurutma makinası tarafından dalgalandı.Eğer sadece hava ile dolu olsalardı. Yumurta akı ya da krema gibi içinde çırpılırlardı.
Adadan adaya. Adalardan adalara.Terketmenin arayışında.Çırpınmak, sapmak, süzülmek, batmak.
Ölmek gibi, düşmemek için.
Francesco Urbano Ragazzi
Designed for the rooms of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Io, tu, lui, lei shows the extraordinary meeting between six young artists and a group of eight homosexual women and men from Venice, all born in between the 1930s and 40s. At first the encounters were kept private as part of A Special Day: an artistic workshop about queer memories and cultures, that from May 2011 is active in the city of Venice thanks to the Osservatorio LGBT (Venice City Hall Young Politics department) and to the UNAR (Na-tional anti racism discrimination office, part of the Equal Opportunities department).In the 2012, from the 6th of March until the 15th of April, in Palazzetto Tito, home of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, the initiated process has been morphed into an ex-hibition aimed at challenging the way the queer cultures are conveyed outside of identity borders: Io, tu, lui, lei is a heterosexual exhibition curated by Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano. Antonio Bigini and Rachele Maistrello, Tomaso De Luca, Sabina Grasso, Andrea Romano and Annatina Caprez created their own projects inspired by reflec-tions during the residency program in Venice and during the meetings with the LGBT group. The six artists haven’t been selected due to any strong adherence to homosexual and queer themes, so much as their varying degrees of recognition of such sensitivities: from love for fragments to the monumentality of the ephemeral, from illusionism to delega-tion of the authority of the artist. To these interventions were then added the contributions of Antonio Barletta, Dafne Boggeri, Chiara Fumai, Margherita Morgantin, Daniele Pezzi, Claudia Rossini, Arin Rungjang: artists whose research fits in an innovative way into the thinking about gender and identity. Thanks to the adopted selection criteria, the exhibition isn’t a refresher course for experts in the sphere, but a happily experimental immersion into a still undiscovered, never ending universe.
Io Tu Lui LeiUna mostraeterosessuale
Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa
Palazzetto TitoDorsoduro 2826Venezia
7 marzo 201215 aprile 2012
Inaugurazione 06 marzo 2012, ore 18.30Palazzetto Tito, Dorsoduro 2826, Veneziaaperto da mercoledì a domenicadalle 10.30 alle 17.30, ingresso liberowww.bevilacqualamasa.it
Un’iniziativa finanziata da: Promosso da:
Assessorato Politiche Giovanili e Pace.
Osservatorio Queer
A cura di: Con il sostegno di:
Foto
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In collaborazione con:
manifesto.indd 1 21/02/12 17:05
IUAV - FACOLTÀ DI DESIGN E ARTI VISIVETERESE - AULA G - DORSODURO 2206, VENEZIA
CINEMA ALLA LUCE DEL GIORNOUNA RASSEGNA ETEROSESSUALEA CURA DI FRANCESCO RAGAZZI E FRANCESCO URBANOCON IL CONTRIBUTO SPECIALE DI PIER LUIGI TAZZI
FOTOGRAFIA DI RACHELE MAISTRELLO
LUNEDÌ 23 MAGGIO H11TROPICAL MALADY DI APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL118' | 2004 | THAILANDIA
MARTEDÌ 24 MAGGIO H11 GOODBYE, DRAGON INN DI TSAI MING-LIANG82' | 2003 | TAIWAN
MERCOLEDÌ 25 MAGGIO H11 FLAMING CREATURES DI JACK SMITH42' | 1963 | USA
GIOVEDÌ 26 MAGGIO H11L'ASSASSINIO DI SISTER GEORGE DI ROBERT ALDRICH139' | 1968 | USA
VENERDÌ 27 MAGGIO H11 PARIS IS BURNING DI JENNIE LIVINGSTON78' | 1991 | USA
UN'INIZIATIVA FNANZIATA DA PROMOSSA DA A CURA DI IN COLLABORAZIONE CON CON IL SOSTEGNO DI INFO
PRESENTA
Associazione Ottava Traversa
fondazione per l’arte contemporaneaMARCH
UNAR - DIPARTIMENTO PER LE PARI OPPORTUNITÀ- NELL'AMBITO DELLA SETTIMANA DI AZIONE CONTRO IL RAZZISMO
ASSESSORATO ALLE POLITICHE GIOVANILI E PACE - OSSERVATORIO LGBT
A special dayIo, tu, lui, leiOne-year workshop and final exhibition, Venice 2011/2012
MirroringResidency program for UAE artists, Venice, 2011
Mirroring is the first residency program for UAE artists in Italy, promoted by the Emirates Foundation, curated by the Associazione E in collaboration with Nuova Icona, the Foundation Giorgio Cini Onlus and Ca’ Foscari University. For a period of 6 weeks Alaa Edris, a young artist from Sharjah who was selected by the art critic Salwa Mikdadi, had the opportunity to work in the Manica Luga, the brand new library of the Cini Foundation on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore; here she could access the enormous collection of books and photos owned by the Foundation Giorgio Cini Onlus and establish links with researchers and experts of other disciplines.A program of activities tailored to the resident artist was planned to introduce her to the Italian and European art context. Studio visits with the artists Haroon Mirza and Gaia Fugazza, lectures in collaboration with the Department of Asian and North African Studies (Ca’ Foscari University) were scheduled amongst meetings with curators and directors of institutions such as Via Farini and DOCVA, Hangar Bicocca, Prada Foundation, Marconi Foundation and Giò Marconi Gallery, Villa Medici - Académie de France, The Swiss Institute in Rome, Pastificio Cerere Foundation, Nomas Foundation, Giuliani Foundation and many others. Furthermore, Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano offered Alaa Edris the opportunity to work with a Venice-based artist - Valentina Roselli - with whom she had an intense intellectual exchange fostered by the curators’ weekly critiques. Alaa and Valentina tried to trace a female genealogy between their cultures: the attempt culminated in the final exhibition Sameage, a double solo show.
The Art Enclosures project is a residency program for artists, created, produced and organised by La Fondazione di Venezia. The project aims to promote the work and career of young African artists. For the fourth edition, the scientific committee was headed by Simon Njami and Mara Ambrozic. After the committee received and scrutinised about 150 candidates, Victoria Samuel Udondian and Tamlyn Young were selected. Art Enclosures specifically asked for Associazione E to develop one program of the residency. The curators Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano have guided and advised the two artists in the discovery of the lagoon territory and of the wider Italian and European art context. Through studio visits, various meetings, museum tours and constant critical confrontations, the residential project allowed a deeper understanding of the research developed by the two artists.The results of this intense work have been displayed in an exhibition hosted by la Casa dei Tre Oci which was open from October the 25th until November the 6th 2011.
Art Enclosures IVResidency program, Fondazione di Venezia, 2011
The ChannelersVerona Art Fair, Independents section, 2011
Selected from amongst more than 150 non-profit organisations, Associazione E opted to reveal itself, for the second editions of Indipendents at ArtVerona. The stand at its dis-posal is designed to be a meeting point where people can freely stay and drink some Turkish chai. Interacting with the space, people then have the possibility to enter into the heart of The Channelers: a curatorial performance conceived by Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano.A series of clipped picture frames forms a sort of mirror board containing images related to the activity of the Associazione E. Choosing from amongst these images and through direct contact with the curators, the visitor can have access to a narration and to a viewing of some artistic content. The Association’s history and the vision of multimedia files shared by artists Rachele Maistrello, Eugenia Vanni, Francesco Bertelé, Valentina Roselli and Alaa Edris, transform into real readings of the future. For four consecutive days the curators use their own professional past to suggest to strangers what their future will hold for them. Associazione E’s old projects become archetypal images which are made personal.
Dolomitenhof ResortGroup show at Dolomiti Contemporanee, Sass Muss, 2011.
Dolomitenhof Resort is a collective, site-generic exhibition, made up of artworks that sensationally lack any pertinence to the context they are in. Impertinently, they induce people to ask themselves “what am I doing here?” in the middle of an industrial area like any other, overlooked by mountains, sometimes dark. It is an ideal place to open a re-sort: one of those contemporary spas that takes unfettered liberties in redesigning the landscape for the sole purpose of selfcare. A marketing strategy for the snippets of selected provinces is the promise of enduring paradise for an entire weekend.And it is not a small affair. From Friday till Sunday: three days is the time of a resurrection. Miraculous rejuvenation of one’s vital functions, new life blood flowing through still human veins: the man, beyond divine, becomes Eden. He plants himself in a deserted unattractive environment, in order to cultivate his own oasis around him.But if the resorts, the five stars resorts, are vulgar and untrue to the earth, this one is on a different level. In Sass Muss, between the guesthouse, the bunker and the path along the river, a route emerges, proceeding in steps, delaying realisation of the goal. A certain distance builds up between the art work and audience, between the project and the result, contrasting the layers of study.Priscilla Tea, Eugenia Vanni, Antonio Guiotto, Nicola Genovese, Rachele Maistrello, Daniele Pezzi e Francesco Bertelè. The invited artists show an equal trust in reality. It is always reality from which they lever up the existing actuality. The fulcra, on the other hand, are different, but operated in the same way: the accuracy of a quiet job – sooner or later – will break in a jolt, a change of status and substance. The effect of these movements; that in crossing a region they make it longer and deeper, could be called surprise. Or also evolution; an act of adaptation of reality, that in differentiating from itself, doesn’t alienate itself from its own nature.The oasis in the desert, even if it is a mirage, exists somewhere else, somewhere not too far and our eyes project its image here. It tricks us, but it also gives us the measure of a desire that has already become concrete.
To the greenvideo, 3:32 min, 2010
To the green is part of the critical text written for Dolomitenhof Resort.An anonymous countryside is subtly changing around a solid iron gate. A slow dissolve de-ceives the viewer into seeing only one landscape where there is a passage between two dif-ferent framings instead. The artificial expedient takes the rhythm of a natural growing plant.
Video:http://vimeo.com/29257504
Collecting the Future is a public academy in Sinop (TK): two weeks debates and planning laboratories aiming to outline the future of the city and the natural park which surrounds it. Among the participants of Collecting the Future, are Michiel van Iersel (curator and cultural manager, Non-Fiction.nl), Eugen Pănescu (architect and urbanist), Ruggero Lala (Felix Meritis Foundation), Rarita Zbranka (AltArt Foundation), Işın Önol (independent curator), Johanna Reiner and Johannes Hoffman (Collabor.at) Amie Dicke, Mircea Nicolae, Johan Mürteza Fidan, Istvan Szakats (artists), Francesco Ragazzi & Francesco Urbano (Associazione E). The results of the works have been displayed in a collective exhibition open from the 17th of September until the 17th of November, in the converted wings of the ex-prison in Sinop. In the occasion of Collecting the Future, Associazione E presented, as a gift to the city, A little out of my sunshine, a project that blends artistic and curatorial practice.Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano presented to Sinop a large print from artist Sabina Grasso’s series Midnight Candy. Before being placed in its final position, the pic-ture was taken in a procession through some symbolic parts of the city. The landscapes reached during the walk have been temporally occupied by a big and shiny wrapped gift carried on the shoulders of a group of teenagers. Everything took place in a day with the aim of investigating the ambiguous political metaphor of “carrying new light”: this is related to the lantern of Diogene, which originated in Sinop, and also to the Turkish Government which will build a nuclear power station near the city. An oscillation between utopia and protest characterised the procession.A video and 16 aluminium clichés were disseminated throughout the ex-prison of Sinop as a document of the action and as a further stage of the project.
A little out of my sunshineCollecting The Future, Sinop, Tk, 2011
Tutulma – Eclipse in Turkish - is the title of Daniele Pezzi’s personal exhibition. A field tent occupies the centre of the room and it forces the audience to go round it in order to find the entrance. Inside, the artist shows the movie that has been set in Turkey and Italy on the occasion of his attendance to the Biennale in Sinop. The exhibition itself is named after this movie.One of the side rooms exposes an installation made with a series of objects that are present in the video (modified geographic maps, bark masks, geometrical solids, books, drowning). These elements acquire the value of sculptures and they are arranged in the space like archaeological finds that have been abandoned by an oceanographic expedition.
Tutulmasolo show by Daniele Pezzi, Venice, 2011
Thanks to the collaboration between Gloria Maria Gallery and Associazione E, San Servolo island hosted the 2nd Internet Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, a project initi-ated by Miltos Manetas. The pavilion presented BYOB an exhibition format created by Rafaël Rozendaal: a video-interactive jam session on the facade of the New Technologies Departments of the Venice Accademia di Belle Arti.Artists: Agnes Bolt, Alterazioni Video, Andreas Angelidakis, Angelo Plessas, Anna Franceschini, Billy Rennekamp, Britta Thie, Claudia Rossini, Eilis McDonald, Elisa Giardina Papa, Giallo Concialdi, Giona Bernardi, Hayley Silverman, Interno3 and crew, Iocose, Ivano Atzori, Jaime Martinez, Jeremy Bailey, Les liens invisibles, LG Williams/ Estate Of LG Williams, Luca Bolognesi, LuckyPDF, Marc Kremers, Marco Cadioli, Marisa Olson, Marlous Borm, Martin Cole, Matteo Erenbourg, Mike Ruiz, Miltos Manetas, Nazareno Crea, Nikola Tosic, Parker Ito, Pegy Zali, Petros Moris, Priscilla Tea, Rachele Maistrello, Rafaël Rozendaal, Rene Abythe, Riley Harmon, Sarah Ciraci, Sarah Hartnett, Theodoros Giannakis, Travess Smalley, UBERMORGEN.COM, Valery Grancer, Wojciech Kosma, Yuri Pattison – list under construction.Curators: Margherita Balzerani, Gloria Maria Cappelletti, Caroline Corbetta, Silvia Ferri De Lazara, Marina Fokidis, Elena Giulia Rossi, Valentina Tanni, Mara Sartore, Yvonne Force Villareal, Doreen Reemen, Jan Aman, Manuel Frara, David Quiles Guilló, Miltos Manetas, Lev Manovich, Angelo Plessas, Rafaël Rozendaal, Domenico Quaranta, Fran-cesco Urbano and Francesco Ragazzi.
Padiglione InternetOn the occasion of the 54. Venice Biennale, 2011.
Video-report:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hECmt347bt0#t=0s
Gli Amatori is a movie set at home “two rooms and a kitchen”. Everything takes place within a flat/showroom, property of LAGO S.p.A. furniture business. The main characters are a group of temporary inhabitants who decide to organize a party and document it on video. The authors give only a few script and direction rules; they then collect the video and take care of the post-production. The editing brings together acting gestures, images of documentation and moments of clear fiction in a reversible film speech, constantly swinging between emptying and filling, welcoming and leaving, single and unanimous, improvisation and recitation.The first of a potential infinite series of versions of Gli Amatori has been set in Appartamento LAGO in Venice, in March 2011; it looked like a business team building exercise and it had as the main characters members of the contemporary art foundation March.The project was made possible by the business and the foundation following on from the residency program LagoStudio 2010.
Gli amatoria film in progress produced by Fondazione March, 2011.
Spot - studio dal vivo is a residency program for artists which started in 2009; an initiative of the Associazione E. Curated by Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano, the project takes place by the Chimney Room in SS. Cosma and Damiano estate on the Giudecca Island: the building was a weapons warehouse in Napoleon times and was given back to the community as a public Art Centre at the end of 2008.Spot creates new webs of relations which expand from being local to becoming international, through the involvement of operators, institutions and people who can benefit from contemporary art. For this reason the artists, during the residency program, are not called to show their work in their own personal exhibitions, but rather they are asked to cover the role of directors of a collective and multidisciplinary process.During 2009/2010, 4 residency cycles were realized.
Spot - studio dal vivoResidency program, 4 cycles, Sala del Camino, Venice, 2009-2o10.
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: Giulia Nomis / CURATORS: Francesco Ragazzi, Francesco Urbano / GUEST GALLERY: Galleria upp / OPEN STUDIO: The Fall, Sala del Camino 06 Dicembre 2009 - 22 Dicembre 2009 / EXHIBITION: Il trentesimo anno , Galleria Upp, 18 Dicembre 2009 - 15 Febbraio 2010
Spot n. 0 - The Fall
Giulia Nomis a photographer from Turin was hosted from December 2009 un-til February 2010 in a studio by the Sala del Camino (chimney room) on the venetian Giudecca island. According to Spot’s rules, during the residency pro-gram the artist has had to relinquish any idea of installing a personal exhibition in the working area– as should be the case – in order to concentrate on her job as part of a cooperative process. The experiment itself is the base of Giulia Nomis’s intervention. She chooses to go deeper, away from photography and to study a theme that often recurs in a series of pictures about the figure of the nymph. The identified subject is the one of the fall, considered a paradigm of the modern age. The fall is in fact the movement of the apple which fell on New-ton’s head and which allows the scientist to theorize about the force of gravity, but it is also the tragic destiny of Icarus, a symbol of human beings placing too much trust in their technical means instead of nature.With the cooperation of the curators Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano, the artist collects all the literary inspiration that guided her in the realisation of the photographic series, and creates a sort of wider bibliography. More than 100 books are suspended in the air thanks to a system of ropes that sustains in this way a small library that can be consulted by the public. The structure of the whole installation is determined by the specific weight of the paper and by the readers’ interaction. A filmography which follows the same logic of the fall patrol, can be consulted instead through a mash up of scenes and sound tracks taken from Hitchcock, Roni Horn, Yoko Ono and Wenders amongst the others.The environment set up in the Sala del Camino works as a hyperlink to the solo show set during the same period by the Upp Gallery and curated by the Associ-azione E: Il trentesimo anno (the 30th year). The exhibition, like the interven-tion created for the Sala del Camino, has been strongly influenced by two spe-cial studio visits which gave the artist fundamental critical lines. Giulia Nomis had the chance to evaluate herself, particularly with the actress Patricia Zanco and the philosopher Diana Sartori, founder of the Circolo di Diotima.
Video:https://vimeo.com/25448742
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: Andrea Kvas / CURATORS: Francesco Ragazzi, Francesco Urbano / GUEST ARTIST: Andrea Contin / WORKSHOP: “Sketch by Sketch”, Boston University, Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, 22-24 Aprile 2010 / EXHIBITION: “Sketchbooks” - Centro Culturale CZ95, 25 Aprile 2010 - 15 Maggio 2010 / WORKS: Boston University students, Andrea Kvas.
Spot n. 1 - Sketchbooks
The selected artist for the second cycle of Spot – studio dal vivo, is Andrea Kvas. He has the opportunity to work from February until March 2010 in a studio by the Sala del Camino, on the Giudecca Island.According to Spot’s rules, the curators Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Ur-bano cooperate with the artist in the direction of an event linked to his personal research, respecting only one limit: to avoid the “solo show” format. Such re-strictions look to bring out the preconceptions and the connections which link artistic practice with its complex plurality.On this premise, on Sunday the 25th of April at 6.30pm by the Freezer Space of the Centro Polivalente CZ95, Sketchbooks opens its doors. It is a collective exhibition and the final step of a workshop that sees Andrea Kvas in the bottega master’s shoes. Until the 2nd of May some of the works made by the Boston University Studio Program’s students and produced under the direction of the artist from Friuli are visible to the public.As a result of two days of exchanges and confrontation, the exhibition begins with the pages of scrap books; pages that – for a young artist – mean primary spaces of pleasure and freedom: intimate places for testing, but also personal ways of escaping the influence of every artistic education. Going through and checking all the visual notes collected by the students in the last few months, Andrea Kvas pushed everyone to identify and develop a recurring focal topic still unexpressed. Everyone who took part of the workshop had the job of devel-oping into a new form, something discarded or hidden.In addition to testing the painting in its collective dimension, Andrea Kvas con-centrated also on a more solitary studio practice. During the residency program, the artist produced a cycle of more than 30 canvases, all 30×70 format. This arbitrary standardisation contrasted with the desire to commit methodical self vandalism: a nonstop accumulation of layers which led to the monochromes of the immediately following years.
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE: Daniele Geminiani, Gabriel Rossell Santillàn (Messico), Naomi Rinçon Gallardo (Messico), André Eugène, Jean Hérard Celeur, Cheby (Haiti) / CURATORS: Francesco Ragazzi, Francesco Urbano / GUEST CURATOR: Pier Luigi Tazzi / TALK: Palazzetto Tito, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa 05 Giuglio 2010 / EXHIBI-TION: Sala del Camino 13 Giugno 2010 - 10 Settembre 2010 / WORKS: André Eugene, Jean Hérard Celeur, Daniele Geminiani, Naomi Rincón Gallardo, Gabriel Rossell Santil-lán, Remo Salvadori, Matthew Stone, Nico Vascellari, José Antonio Vega Macotela.
Spot n.2 - The Island
The third residency for Spot – studio dal vivo. This time it is Daniele Gemin-iani, founder of the London artist-run initiative The Island, to be appointed artistic director of the Sala del Camino (chimney room) in exchange of an ate-lier on the Giudecca island.From the 24th of May until the 14th of June the artist transfers the physical and mental dimensions of his studio from the British capital city to the Venetian lagoon. So the third episode of 24 Month Meditation takes shape: a nomadic project lasting a total of 2 years, that widens and overturns the well established format of the Biennali. The highlight of the residential experience is a collective exhibition that opens on Saturday the 12th of June [at 7pm, Sala del Camino] preceded by a talk in the Bevilacqua la Masa Foundation.The logic that brings the invited artists together is primarily vitalistic, depend-ing in various ways on the resident artist’s biography, but it is around spiritual forms of transcendence of being that the displayed works of art converge more directly. One of the first hot topics is formed by the sculptures of the Haitians André Eugene and Jean Hérard Celeur, members of Atis Rezistans – Sculpteurs de la Grand Rue and founders of the Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince. With the voodoo assemblage, the metaphysical geometry of Remo Salvatori and Nico Vascellari’s candle sculptures are challenged. The sculptures of the lattest also light a photographic cycle of the British artist Matthew Stone. Both Antonio Vega Macotela and Naomi Rincòn-Gallardo worked together with some Mexi-can prisoners: their works are characterised by claustrophobic and mortuary atmospheres which are on the other side opposing Gabriel Rossell Santillàn’s photographs and videos about the San Luis Portosì desert, where the Huicholes population lives. Daniele Geminiani interprets the Sala del Camino like an ex-tension of his mind. The artist darkens all the bright sources turning the space like a cave or a giant darkroom. The only uncovered skylight gives rhythm to the exhibition, determining, with the sun transit, the opening and closing times.Spot – studio dal vivo, curated by Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano, benefits in this occasion from the special contribute of Pier Luigi Tazzi.
Spot n.3 - Les Rencontres
On the 25th of October 2010, on the occasion of the Troisiemes journées de formation pour les Directeurs des affaires culturelles des collectivités territo-riales en Europe organised in Venice by the French association Les Rencontres together with the Associazione E, Rachele Maistrello, the third artist in resi-dence of Spot – studio dal vivo, turned her working space into an exhibition and opened it to the public. The training days took place in Sala del Camino (room of the path) with the aim of providing networking opportunities for the various participating European cultural operators within the context of some of the most lively and innovative realities of the venetian contemporary art sys-tem. Nuova Icona, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Fondazione Cluadio Buziol were represented together with Associazione E.For the occasion Rachele Maistrello mounted a conference room inspired by the Caribbean landscapes only on the surface. The real goal of the artist is to expand into the third dimension the exotic themed screens that decorate the desktops of half of the world’s offices. This kind of standard photography, which consid-ers the palm tree its elected object, is analyzed in its formal components not so much to denote irony concerning the middle-class desire of escaping work, but to describe the contemporary concept of after world: the tropical paradise as a metaphysic dimension of sensorial peace.Rachele Maistrello designed for Associazione E an environment that fulfils a specific function – that of hosting an international convention – whilst at the same time representing a personal statement about the essence of photograph-ic methods.
Video:http://vimeo.com/25191537
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: Rachele Maistrello; CURATORS: Francesco Ragazzi, Francesco Urbano / PARTNER: Les Rencontres - Associazione europea di assessori e direttori culturali / GUESTS: Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Fondazione Buziol, Lo-fi Architecture, European Cultural Foundation, Associazione Nuova Icona / TALK: Sala del Camino, 25 Ottobre 2010 / EXHIBITION: Sala del Camino 26 Ottobre - 5 Dicembre 2010.
Invited by Paris city hall for a residency by the Cité Internationale des Arts, Francesco Ragazzi and Francesco Urbano start their own research on the region.They build up an initial outline talking to other foreigners, interviewed by the language school of the Alliance Française – Ile de France. The collected testimonies (spoken, drawn, unuttered) express varying degrees of proximity to an external gaze.To broaden the visual, a group of 20 people from Paris has been invited; they have been reunited through a network of friendship. The video camera of the Associazione E has been offered to them to record bit by bit various, unique urban paths. The scant prior experience of the group with the video camera imposed the need to adopt a new perspec-tive about familiar locations.The never achievable command of languages, urban spaces and the opera, is expressed in a collective and multi-faceted work which includes photographs, drawings and videos.Among the results of the work, there is an exhibition called Chambre double by the studio 621 of the Cité Internationale des Arts and an essay entitled Sur Paris. Del parlare senza la lingua (of speaking without language), published in the magazine of the philosophical Circle of Diotima:http://www.diotimafilosofe.it/down.php?t=3&id=282
Sur Paris.Chambre Doublemixed media project, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, 2008.
Partenze & Arrivi (Departures & Arrivals) is a festival created to investigate the knots which make the world of art a system: from non-profit spaces to museums, from art-ists belonging to different generations to the curators. Its nomadic base took place in the areas of artistic production on the Giudecca Island, such as industrial constructions or historical buildings which have been turned into studios. Half way between being an event and a laboratory, Departures & Arrivals marked out, in two editions between 2008 and 2009, an itinerary in the city through exhibitions, site specific installations, artists talk, conferences and concerts.The warehouses of the ex- alehouses Dreher, the studios of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, the cultural centre CZ95 have been the scene of a confrontation between artists coming from different education and career backgrounds. Starting from the territory, the festival launched a platform of international exchange thanks to the interventions of Angela Vettese (Bevilacqua la Masa), Monique Veaute (François Pinault Foundation), Andrea Bruciati (GCAC of Monfalcone), Emmanuelle Lavaud (Récollets), Sidney Peyroles (Cité Internationale des Arts). Partenze & Arrivi moreover, widened its horizons through a contest. As a prize, a residency in Cité des Arts in Paris, a solo show by the GCAC in Monfalcone, and one other by the Church Hall S. Ludovico – Nuova Icona.
Partenze & Arrivicontemporary art festival, Venice, 2009.
To the lightvideo, 10:41 min, 4/3, 2007, realized as part of the performance “Giacere” for the opening of Frigo
Light always returns, punctual and unforeseen. It surprises the world and embarasses it. It overexposes the track of the dream and erases it.Engine is in motion again. The fridge is in use.We have blommed in the light, we bloom in the dark.We are opening up into the belly of the world, which, relentlessly, keeps its engine running. Cools it down and warms it up.Like a fridge in the night.The contents keep intact and let themselves go. They stir, pulse, breathe in their bed. It’s a lightless image. A photograph in the dark-room.A flower in the dark is a light offering. A flower in the dark is a request of light.It’s an invitation. It’s an opportunity.
video:http://vimeo.com/25183186
FRANCESCO URBANO
E-mail: [email protected]: +39 333 67 63 246
FRANCESCO RAGAZZI
E-mail: [email protected]: +39 333 76 49 754
