Joint is Out of Time

The opening of the exhibition Time is Out of Joint, which brought the far-reaching process of transformation, reorganization, and the new installation of the museum’s collections to its conclusion, marked the start of a new chapter in the history of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. The exhibition has been the subject, over the course of time, of a certain number of changes—variants, additions, and replacements of works—which, by discreetly modifying the morphology of the event, has brought to light a project conceived from the very outset to be continually modulated. Joint is Out of Time, curated by Bettina Della Casa and Saretto Cincinelli, restarts the game, creating in what has already been created, a legible “exhibition” that is a sort of a variation while the first event is still underway; a second event, that is, capable of making a place for itself within a context, of causing it to “resound” by adding diverse and complementary nuances and tonalities. The complex operation that relates Time is Out of Joint with Joint is Out of Time, explicitly underscored by the inversion of the terms expressed in the title, tends—by way of a sort of double bind—to instill a disjointed relationship between two projects that act as two independent yet inseparable moments in a single process: two simultaneous moments in an operation which aim is to bring out, at the same time, the precious heritage preserved by the Galleria’s prestigious collection on the one hand, and the deep incidence of the memory of art history that gives life to the new works exhibited, on the other. Arranged throughout the various rooms of the Gallery, the exhibition presents artists from different generations and countries: the works of Elena Damiani (Lima, 1979), Fernanda Fragateiro (Montijo, Portogallo, 1962), Francesco Gennari (Pesaro, 1973), Roni Horn (New York, 1955), Giulio Paolini (Genova, 1940), Jan Vercruysse (Ostenda, 1948–Bruges, 2018) mingle with the pre-existing ones, thus delineating the emergence of a pioneering constellation whose design seems capable of finding a place for itself within the corpus of Time is Out of Joint. The work of Davide Rivalta (Bologna, 1974) continues on the stairs in front of the Museum; through the epiphanic presence of his sculptures and their disorienting appearance in the urban habitat, the artist competes within the complexity of contemporary time in relation with animal time. 

Artists: Elena Damiani, Fernanda Fragateiro, Francesco Gennari, Roni Horn, Giulio Paolini, Davide Rivalta, Jan Vercruysse