A summer full of events at GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo: the museum’s activity will resume on June 7, under the direction of newly-appointed Lorenzo Giusti, with the opening of four new exhibitions.
Gary Kuehn
Il diletto del praticante (Practitioner’s Delight)
June 8–August 26, 2018
GAMeC opens its new season with the first solo exhibition in an Italian museum of the American sculptor Gary Kuehn (Plainfield, New Jersey, 1939), which pays homage to the novel artistic curriculum of the artist, whose raw, radical language developed from an initial reflection on the physicality of materials and played a significant role in the birth of a new conception of sculpture, equidistant from the subjectivism of Expressionist abstraction and the objectivity and geometric rigor of minimalism.
The exhibition, curated by Lorenzo Giusti, will comprise four sections, hosted by the museum’s display areas and Palazzo della Ragione’s prestigious Sala delle Capriate, in Bergamo Alta’s medieval heart.
The show explores a multidirectional path that aims to review the evolution of Gary Kuehn’s artistic language and highlight the surprising relevance of his work. It will present a significant core of about 70 works, including sculptures, drawings, paintings, and installations, among the most important in the artist’s corpus, dating from the early 1960s to the most recent pieces, with a series of new items specifically made for this occasion.
The entire historical series—from the “Wedge Pieces” to the “Bolt Pieces,” from “Melt” to “Mattress Pieces,” and the “Pedestal Pieces”—will be represented in Bergamo’s Palazzo della Ragione—built in the late 12th century—affording the visitor an exhaustive overview of the first, fundamental, creative decade, and an introduction to the second part of the exhibition, hosted in the GAMeC rooms.
The first floor of the museum will house three sections, corresponding to some of the fundamental “contrasts” investigated by Kuehn during his artistic career: deformation/adaptation, connection/separation, freedom/limitation.
Progressing from the first post-minimalist sculptures, now internationally famous, through graphic works, two-dimensional zinc and copper works, and the “Black Paintings” of the 1970s and also those of more recent production in the Noughties; the “Twist Pieces” and “Berliner Series” of the 1980s and 1990s; then the resin sculptures and the “Stencil Drawings” of recent years, as well as the “Gesture Projects” that the artist has produced since the 1960s, throughout his career to the present time.
The exhibition catalogue, published by Mousse Publishing in collaboration with GAMeC Books, includes texts by Alex Bacon, Lorenzo Giusti, David Komary, and a conversation between Gary Kuehn and Sara Fumagalli.
The exhibition is part of a series in honour of Arturo Toffetti.
Alongside this exhibition, three other shows will be hosted at GAMeC:
Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi per l’Arte - EnterPrize – 9th Edition
Enchanted Bodies / Fetish for Freedom
June 8–September 9, 2018
Developed from the epistemology and cosmovision of the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé religion, which sees the profound influence objects may have on people and their surroundings, the exhibition—curated by Bernardo Mosqueira—explores human ability to create objects that generate new freedom and strength.
This project highlights the power of the migrant body and the foreign subject as users and creators of culture, and brings together works by 17 artists—Abbas Akhavan, Tania Bruguera, Carolina Caycedo, Alia Farid, Meschac Gaba, Anawana Haloba, Rodrigo Hernández, Iman Issa, Tonico Lemos Auad, Maria Loboda, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Felipe Meres, Carlos Motta, Amalia Pica, Eric van Hove, Danh Vō and Haegue Yang—themselves temporary migrants, nomads, refugees, deportees, immigrants, or exiles whose daily lives are far now from their place of birth.
La Collezione Impermanente (The Impermanent Collection) #1
June 8–September 9, 2018
A new research, exhibition and workshop platform will constitute a scientific tool to study the GAMeC’s own artwork heritage, a space for pondering the art of collecting and institutional acquisition policies, and a space for curatorial experimentation.
The first appointment of this project—curated by Valentina Gervasoni and A. Fabrizia Previtali—will describe how the Collection began and how it continues to grow, presenting selections from its core in relation to the period in which the works came to the museum, bringing together under one roof modern authors, masters of the 20th century and contemporary works of art, as part of a multifaceted and sometimes cacophonic whole.
Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi (Sibiu, 1961) has been invited to launch the platform by designing an advertising campaign, and will conceive a site-specific project for the museum.
Artists’ Film International – 10th Edition
June 8–September 9, 2018
The GAMeC continues its participation in the prestigious worldwide network dedicated to video art, involving leading international contemporary art institutions and artists from all over the world since 2008.
For this tenth edition, curators Sara Fumagalli and Valentina Gervasoni selected Italian artist Elena Mazzi (Reggio Emilia, 1984) and her work I’m Talking to You (2016–18), which will open the screening agenda.
Opening: Thursday, June 7, 7pm
