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Young Curators Residency Programme
Every year since 2007 Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo promotes the Young Curators Residency Programme Torino. The project aims to support emerging curatorial practice while spreading knowledge of the Italian art scene on an international level.
Young Curators Residency Programme 2007 Curated by Francesco Manacorda
Palazzo Re Rebaudengo, Guarene d’Alba, Cuneo, Italy May 26 – September 30, 2007
Laws Of Relativity
Laws of Relativity brings together works that reflect on the tension between the legal and the illegal in Italy and abroad. The project sheds light on practices that query how laws – both constitutional laws and unwritten – function, as well as how they are established and justified in both the short and long-term. In works that refer to particular cultural, historical, economical, political and geographical contexts, the contributing artists put forward the relativity of the notion of legality and legitimacy. Whether they have been specifically produced for this exhibition, or have previously existed, the works and projects presented – from film, video and audio recording to photography, drawing and archival solution – provide different takes and strategies to address this issue and to navigate the spaces in between the legal and the illegal.
Some of the artist in the show opt for a Journalistic or sociological approach, such as Elena Nemkova, who records a Russian art dealer as he recounts his involvement in crooked businesses before he became a full-time gallerist. With a similar reportage posture, Mario Spada has located and photographed the ruins of the delirious villas of imprisoned gangsters, burnt according to their owners instructions in order to prevent access, and Eugenio Tibaldi has spent seven years carefully mapping the illegal architecture of Naples suburbs through primary research, mainly by talking to the inhabitants of the status- less building units and complexes. Conversely, Paolo Pennuti approaches his subject – Biloxi, Missisippi, only four months after being hit by hurricane Katrina – through documentary and act of mapping, which he then takes the freedom to reinterpret.
Detachment from the subject under scrutiny is not the exhibition general rule, some artists contribute anecdotes from their own experience or from collective experiences they have chosen to make theirs. Goldiechiari have made visible certain documents relating to the public prosecutors seizures to which they have been subjected for making a sound piece that mixed Italian national anthem whit the sounds of a toilet flushing. Through their work legal support, Alterazioni Video have brought to our attention another legal case: one resulting from the materials damaged caused by demonstrators during the G8 protests in Genova in 2004. Also contesting a seemingly arbitrary governmental decision – namely the eviction of sans-papiers from a building in Rome in 2004 – FORMAZERO have been providing support of a structural and diplomatic kind to evicted squatters. In all three cases, what is known as legal action is presented as contestable by the artists who dispute its applications. While operating according to similar incentives – i.e. weighing the juridical against the human – collective initiatives Isola Art Center and Orfeo Tv-Telestreet go one step further in their attempt to bring citizens more rights then they are actually granted, or then they think they have. Instituted in Milan in 2002 by critics, curators and artists, Isola Art Center is a project that has gathered neighbours’ associations to joint forces against developers’ speculation, by demanding the group’s rights to be involved in any decision regarding the demolition of an area of the town they have occupied for cultural activities. Following on from the 1970s tradition of free radio in Italy, Bologna-based Orfeo Tv-Telestreet exercises the brechtian claim over media as a two-way means of communication – also a constitutional right stated in article 21 of the Italian constitution. For Laws of relativity, Isola Art Center and Orfeo Tv-Telestreet present works that epitomise their approach to artistic action: one based on ethical know-how.
Favouring critique over action, Claire Fontaine brings lights, literally, to an excess of power. On 22 March 2006, the mayor of Milan orders the substitution of the plaque commemorating Giuseppe Pinelli’s death and reading “Killed innocent”, for a new one saying “Died accidentally”. As a direct response to it, Claire Fontaine has restored the original terminology which she has rendered in white neon. In Flessibilità negativa (2006), Annapaola Passarini also approaches questionable decision and rules, more specifically in the field of employment law. The artist examines the precariousness of the current working condition as observed in European industries increasingly threatened by outsourcing.
And alongside the above mentioned strategies, other artists privilege less tangibles modes of address. Ana Maria Bresciani’s transparent drawing alluding to surveillance use a metaphorical approach, while Andrea Salvino presents a collection of icons of protest and power from political and cinematographic sources, as for Armando Lulaj, his choice of imagery is an oblique way of representing the porous notion of illegal and legal in a post-communist like Albania. Irony is another strategy found in Laws of relativity, as in Paolo Chiasera’s myth, Young Dictators’ village, where aspirant but idle “famous dictators” from Idi Amin to Mao, cohabit. Sarcasms too is used by Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio in Dreams and conflicts (2003), a fake pass to the Venice Biennial, and by Italo Zuffi in his film documenting a performance in which the singer of a band shouts the ranking of an Italian artists taken from a poll organised by Flash Art in 2006. Unsurprisingly, the art world, like any other reality, is present as a topic in this exhibition. If Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio and Italo Zuffi contests the art world’s legitimacies, Claire Fontaine – with Passe-partout – a burglar kit to facilitate breaking into all types of buildings and vehicles – quote the “exceptional” legislation of which the art gallery has often been the recipient. From a more askew viewpoint goldiechiari’s documentation piece equally illustrates the limits of the art world’s status. Laws of relativity is designed by Lupo&Burtscher, also responsible for the design of the archive complied by the curators together with Jimena Acosta Romero during their research throughout Italy this spring. Composed by audiovisual and printed material included exhibition catalogues and artists’ book, the archive’s content reflects upon the issue dealt with in both exhibitions, while opening them up to wider possibilities.
Curators
Anna Colin
Anna Colin is an independent curator, educator, researcher, and gardener based in East Kent, UK. Among other areas of enquiry, Anna is engaged with social practice, critical pedagogy, alternative institutional models, and critical and participatory landscaping. Anna was a co-founder and director of Open School East, an independent art school and community space in London then Margate (2013-20). She worked as associate curator at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris (2014-20), associate director at Bétonsalon – Centre for art and research, Paris (2011-12), and curator at Gasworks, London (2007-10). In 2015-16, Anna was co-curator, with Lydia Yee, of British Art Show 8 (Leeds, Edinburgh, Norwich, Southampton).
Anna works as a lecturer on the MFA Curating at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is co-curating the 2nd edition of the Art & Industry Triennale in Dunkerque (June 2023 – January 2024), alongside working on a number of projects at the crossroads between pedagogy, horticulture and art, in the UK, France and Belgium. Anna recently completed her PhD at the University of Nottingham, unpacking the notion of the alternative in multi-public educational and cultural organisations from the late 19th century to the present, in the UK and further afield. Since 2021, Anna has been training in horticulture and garden design.
Elena Sorokina
Elena Sorokina is a Russian-born, Paris based curator and art historian, alumna of the Whitney Museum of American Art ISP, New York. She was Chief-curator of the Celeste Prize in 2014. She recently co-organized Spaces of Exception, a special project for the Moscow Biennial, symposium What is a postcolonial exhibition?, a collaborative project of SMBA/Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and she is currently working on a special project for the upcoming Moscow Biennial. Her recent exhibitions include (selection): Temps Trituré. Agnes Varda at LVMH in Brussels, Petroliana at Moscow Museum of Modern Art; Laws of Relativity at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; On Traders’ Dilemmas (Tracing Roads Through Central Asia) at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Scènes Centrales at Tri Postal, Lille (France); Etats de l’Artifice at the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and others. She published in numerous catalogs, and has been writing for Artforum, Flash Art, Cabinet Magazine, Manifesta Journal, Moscow Art Magazine, and other publications. Sorokina is a frequent speaker in international conferences and has been invited as guest lecturer to ISCP, New York; Garage CCC, Moscow; HISK, Gent (Belgium); and other institutions.
Coordinator
Francesco Manacorda
Francesco Manacorda (Torino, 1974) is currently the artistic director of the V-A-C Foundation (Moscow) and visiting professor at LJMU School of Art and Design in Liverpool. He earned a degree in Education from the University of Turin (2000) and an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London (2001-2003). He has published articles and reviews in such publications as Artforum, Domus, Flash Art, Frieze, Metropolis M, Mousse, Piktogram, Kaleidoscope and ArtReview. He has edited numerous publications and written critical monographs on several artists’ works. Between 2007 and 2009 he served as curator at the Barbican Art Gallery, where he realized the large-scale exhibitions Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art and Radical Nature – Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969-2009 (2009). In 2007 he curated the Slovenian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale and in 2009 the New Zealand Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, while in 2013 he was a member of the International Jury for the 55th Venice Biennale. His curatorial practice has also included freelance projects such as Subcontinent – The Indian Subcontinent in Contemporary Art, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino (2006). From February 2010 to March 2012, he was director of Artissima, the international fair of contemporary art in Turin, and from 2012 to 2017 he was artistic director of Tate Liverpool where he curated exhibitions such as Mondrian and His Studios; Glenn Ligon: Encounter and Collisions; An Imagined Museum; Leonora Carrington: Transgressing Discipline; and Cathy Wilkes. In 2016 he co-curated the Liverpool Biennial. He was visiting lecturer in exhibition history and critical theory at the curating contemporary art department of the Royal College of Art, London from 2006 to 2011.
Artists
- Alterazioni Video
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Legal support fund raising, 2004
8 video on monitors, print on paper. Variable dimensions
Courtesy of the artists - Ana Maria Bresciani
Ana Maria Bresciani was born in Bogotá, Colombia, 1978. She lives and works in Italy since 2001.
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Kneb 30, 2007
Marker on glass, photography on paper b/w
Courtesy of the artist
- Paolo Chiasera
Paolo Chaisera was born in 1978, Bologna, Italy. He lives and works in Berlin.
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Young Dictators' Village trailer, 2004
video, 1'
Courtesy of Massimo Minini Gallery, Brescia, Italy, and Francesca Minini Milan - Claire Fontaine
Claire Fontaine is a Paris-based collective artist, founded in 2004.
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Killed innocent, 2006
White plaque, white neon, cables and transformers , 140 x 115 cm Courtesy of the artist and T293 Gallery, Naples, Italy - Formazero
FORMAZERO is a collective of artists from different generations, backgrounds and disciplines born in Rome. It is currently composed by Davide Franceschini, photographer and architecture historian, Maurizio Giri, musician, and Antonio Venti, videoartist and director.
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Euphonia_01, 2004
Equipment, video on monitor and booklet designed by Lupo&Burtscher 22' (installation view)
Courtesy of FORMAZERO - Goldiechiari
Duo goldiechiari is a collective composed by Sara Goldschmied (Arzignano, Italy, 1975) and Eleonora Chiari (Roma, 1971), who have been working as an artistic duo since 1997. They live and work in Roma and Milano, Italy.
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Submerged struggle, 2002
lambda print , 160 x 110 cm Courtesy of Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York - Isola Art Center
Isola Art Center is a center for contemporary art, an association born in 2003 in Milano, Italy. It is composed by around thirty artists, critics, editors and museum directors.
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Organised by Bert Theis and Katia Anguelova, 2007
Installation
Courtesy of the artist - Armando Lulaj
Armando Lulaj was born in 1980, Tirana, Albania, where he lives and works.
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Shadow Starved, 2004
b/w prints on photographic paper, 40 x 27.2 cm each
Courtesy of the artist - Lupo & Burtscher
Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio was born in 1972, Pozzuoli (NA), Italy. He lives and works in Berlin and Napoli, Italy.
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Unclassified, 2007
Seven wooden elements with metal framework
Courtesy of the artist - Elena Nemkova
Elena Nemkova was born in 1971, Dushanbe, Tajikistan. She lives and works in Milano, Italy and St. Petersburg, Russia.
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Gallerist's tales, 2006-07
Sound piece, audio CD, MP3, portable CD player and headphones 12' (video frames)
Courtesy of the artist - Orfeo Tv-Telestreet
Orfeo Tv-Telestreet is a collective of artists born in 2002, Bologna, Italy. They live and work in Italy.
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Antennas, 2006
Video, 3'49'' - Shot in Rotterdam and broadcast on VPRO Dutch National Television, January 2006, prime time - Collection of Telestreet Network - Paolo Pennuti
Paolo Pennuti was born in 1974, Forlì, Italy. He lives and works in Forlì, Rome and Venezia, Italy.
- Annapaola Passarini
Annapaola Passarini was born in Verona, Italy, 1974. She lives and works in Venezia, Italy.
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Negative Flexibility, 2005
Slides and audio, 6'40''
Courtesy of the artist - Andrea Salvino
Andrea Salvino was born in Roma, 1969. He lives and works in Roma and Berlin.
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History du cinéma / Actualité de l'histoire / Historie des actualités, 2007
4 posters and 1 drawing , 88 x 68 cm each
Courtesy of the artist - Lorenzo Scotto Di Luzio
Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio was born in 1972, Pozzuoli, Napoli, Italy. He lives and works in Berlin and Napoli.
- Mario Spada
Mario Spada was born in 1971, Napoli, Italy, where he lives and works.
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Scarface, 2005
Series of b/w photograph pigment prints on fine art pearl canvas , four 80 x 80 cm/one 80 x 120 cm
Courtesy of the artist - Eugenio Tibaldi
Eugenio Tibaldi was born in 1977, Alba, Italy. He lives and works in Napoli, Italy.
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Geografica Economica 02, 2006
Floor piece, white acrylic on satellite photo on wood, plexiglas , 400 x 400 x 2,6 cm
Courtesy of Umberto Di Marino Art Gallery, Naples, Italy - Italo Zuffi
Italo Zuffi was born in 1969, Imola, Italy. He lives and works in Milano, Italy.
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List (Flash Art 2006), 2006
Video documentation (still from the video)
Courtesy of the artist
Jury
Francesco Bonami
Francesco Bonami (Firenze, 1955) has been senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, from 1999 to 2008. He also was artistic director of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino (Italy) since its foundation (now honorary director), Fondazione Pitti Discovery, Firenze (Italy) and the contemporary art center Villa Manin, Udine (Italy). He was the director of the 50th Venice Biennial of Visual Arts in 2003, and he was the first Italian curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial. He curated several international exhibitions like The Universal Experience at the Hayward Gallery, London, the Whitney Museum of America Art Biennial in 2010, and of the first edition of the T-Torino Triennale Tremusei. He is a regular contributor to the Italian daily Il Riformista, Zero and Vanity Fair Italy. Until 2013 he was director of Tar, a magazine of art and culture. In 2010 he received the Légion d’honneur of the Franch Republic. He published several books among which Lo potevo fare anch’ io. Perché l ‘arte contemporanea è davvero arte (2009), Dopotutto non è brutto (2010), Si crede Picasso (2010) and Maurizio Cattelan. Autobiografia non autorizzata (2011). Among his last exhibitions, the Takashi Murakami’ s solo exhibition, Il Ciclo di Arhat, (Milan, 2014) and The see is my land–Artisti dal Mediterraneo, at the Milan Triennial with Emanuela Mazzonis (Milan, 2014 and MAXXI, Rome, 2013 ).
Ralph Rugoff
Ralph Rugoff (New York, 1957) has been chosen to curate the 2015 Lyon Biennial. He is director of the Hayward Gallery, London, and since his appointment in 2006, he has curated numerous exhibitions including, Psycho Buildings: Artists Take On Architecture, The Painting of Modern Life and most recently, Jeremy Deller: Joy in People. He was previously director of the California College of the Arts (CCA) Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, and was the founding chair of CCA’s Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice. In 2002 Ralph served as a curatorial advisor to the Sydney Biennial, and in 2005 he was a curatorial correspondent for the T-Torino Triennale Tremusei. In December 2005, he was awarded the Katherine Ordway Prize given in recognition of important contributions to the field of contemporary arts and letters. His publications include monographs on George Condo, Mark Wallinger and Anya Gallacio, as well as Circus American, Scene of the Crime, and At the Threshold of the Visible.
Teresa Gleadowe
Teresa Gleadowe (London) is a curator, writer, and editor with extensive experience in contemporary visual arts, both nationally and internationally, and Chair of Nottingham Contemporary. She was a member of the Furla Prize 2015. She worked for the Visual Arts Department of the British Council, London, and the Tate Gallery, London, as head of information. In 1992 she joined the academic staff of the Royal College of Art, London, to develop and lead the curating course. She was head of the Curating Contemporary Art department until the summer of 2006, when she left the college to work freelance. From 2006 to 2012 she was Research Consultant and Series Editor for the Exhibition Histories series published by Afterall. She has also taught on curatorial programmes at California College of the Arts, San Francisco; de Appel, Amsterdam; the London Consortium MA Film Curating; the MA Curating at Chelsea College of Art and Design; and on the Curatorial Intensive run by Independent Curators International in New York in July 2011. She has co-convened two conferences with Kitty Scott for the Banff International Curatorial Institute and a symposium, On Remoteness in March 2013. She is a member of the Advisory Board of PEER, a member of the ICA’s Artists Advisory Committee, a specialist adviser to The John Lyon’s Charity and a member of AICA and ICOM. She is also Chair of CAST (the Cornubian Arts & Science Trust), a new charity based in Helston, Cornwall (UK), created in 2012.
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