30th anniversary programming
Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art
Piazza Mafalda di Savoia
10098 Rivoli (Turin)
Italy
www.castellodirivoli.org
www.castellodirivoli.tv
Thirty years of contemporariness
Thirty years have passed since the start of the adventure that saw the opening of the first Italian museum dedicated entirely to contemporary art. A wholly new and special museum, not only for the country, but also because it is housed in an architectural space of great art-historical importance, the Castello di Rivoli, a former residence of the royal Savoy family. The Castello has survived years of vicissitudes and events and still appears “unfinished” as the famous architect Juvarra left it. With its opening as a museum, Rivoli, the great unfinished, dream and obsession of the first king of Sardinia, became once more a site for work, for dialogue, for cultural dynamism and a privileged observatory for everything going on in the Italian art scene and also an integral part of the vaster and more advanced international cultural context.
With an attentive focus on the new cultural and artistic centrality of Europe, in dialogue with the cultures of the Near and Far East and Mediterranean basin, the Castello is organising a series of special exhibitions and events for its 30th anniversary linked to the theme of dialogue between the latest trends and the artistic culture of the Old Continent.
Jan Dibbets. Another Photography
8 April–29 June 2014
Curator: Marcella Beccaria
Since his earliest works in the late 1960s, Jan Dibbets (b. 1941; Weert, Netherlands) has found new areas of research for the development of contemporary languages. A pioneer of conceptual art, the artist was one of the first to investigate the distance between reality and the possibilities offered by photography as a medium, rejecting any notion of photography as being merely an objective recorder. Rigorous and independent, his research has explored important areas such as the analysis of space, light and the properties of perception, arriving at an investigation of some basic tenets of Western artistic culture, such as the use of perspective in depicting and its symbolic significance. Marked by an extreme rigour in style, Dibbets’ art today presents a corpus of rare compactness that constitutes a source of inspiration for many artists of later generations.
Exploring some of the principal milestones in his development, and highlighting the artist’s works present in the Castello’s own collections, the Jan Dibbets. Another Photography exhibition intends to pay tribute to one of Europe’s leading artists, whose role deserves full recognition today. The Jan Dibbets retrospective opens the exhibitions programme celebrating the Castello di Rivoli’s 30th anniversary, by paying tribute to one of the masters who was at the Museum for Ouverture, the history exhibition curated by Rudi Fuchs that inaugurated the spaces and cultural programme of Italy’s first contemporary art museum.
Portrait of the artist as a young man
Scholarship for Young Italian Artists
10 June–21 September
Curator: Marcella Beccaria
In 2014, the Museum is organising a special edition of the Scholarship for Young Italian Artists under the title Portrait of the artist as a young man. The resulting exhibition will for the first time show a selection of the finest candidates that have participated in the programme, each alongside the other. In reflecting on the history of the scholarship in this way, the exhibition thus also proposes a wide-ranging overview of the development of Italian art in the past ten years. Since its creation, the Scholarship has provided support for artists in a variety of ways, including the production of special projects, residences abroad, personal and group shows at the Castello. Thanks to the generosity of Supporter Friends, the Scholarship has evolved as a flexible platform, able to adapt to the needs and productivity of the artists, stimulating them to see the Museum as a dynamic centre for the arts with which to construct an active dialogue. And as a result of its constant capacity for renewal, the Scholarship today continues successfully to be an important source of help for artists who have participated in the programme, contributing to the development of their research and to their visibitility nationally and internationally.
Manifest intention. Drawing in all its styles and forms
11 October 2014–January 2015
Curators: Beatrice Merz with Marianna Vecellio
Drawing as a daily practice and method of checking on oneself, of analysis or for letting off steam, a means of communication or expressive urge: this is the subject of the major exhibition hosted in Manica Lunga and elsewhere in the Museum’s large rooms. Part of a broader reflection on themes that over the years led to the creation of the very concept of museum, of collection, the exhibition analyses the context of drawing in all its forms, as the forebear of a finished work or as finished work in its own right. Drawing, too often an overlooked medium, underlies every artistic practice and can take the form of a sketch or note, a project or a finished work full of portent.
An important nucleus of drawings in the exhibition consists of works by artists associated either with the history of the museum, or through their presence in the collections, or because they have been presented in some of the most important exhibitions held in 30 years by the Castello di Rivoli. Artists like William Kentridge, Richard Long, Nan Goldin, Cai Guo-Qiang, to mention just a few, have been invited to exhibit written and ‘drawn’ works. The exhibition is introduced by a few historic works by outstanding draughtsmen such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Mirò, Paul Klee, and Giorgio Morandi. The event concludes with a close look at younger art, including the work of Alexandra Mir, Charles Avery and Robin Rhode, and with a sideways look also at the world of animation. With this exhibition, the Museum breaks with its exhibitions history by examining a theme never before tackled in its rooms.
Sophie Calle
11 October 2014–January 2015
Curator: Beatrice Merz
Sophie Calle (b. 1953, Paris) is a writer, artist, photographer, director and even detective. She is a little of all this, according to the characters she plays, the rituals she imagines, the parts of her life she tells and feelings she shares. She narrates, recites and directs her works like her own existence: she lives and creates in symbiosis. Her projects develop by involving other people arbitrarily, with little consideration for their private lives. The inner self of herself or others is displayed to the public in a provocative fashion, without any thoughtfulness for the secrets of the soul. Her installations are the conclusion and effect of situations that are entirely staged by the artist living in an autobiographical way. Her work usually consists of an association of photography and text, video and interviews.
In Italy, she is best known for her participation at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, with the video of the death of her mother presented in the central exhibition and with Prenez soin de vous presented in the French pavilion. To make this work, she asked 107 women to play the part of someone receiving a goodbye letter from a man, and then elaborating their distress by involving individuals and public. The wholly personal and voyeuristic approach of Sophie Calle has caused her to become celebrated and admired as a figure and to be considered a symbol of contemporary art, an icon of modernity.
Contemporary Art Day
I won’t come down any more. Contemporary, non-topical time
11–12 October
Time is our contemporary. We must be in time, in our time, to be contemporary always. But the art of being contemporary is something learned, and once learned, is not put aside. It is used. It is a tool that serves to live and interpret the world. A marathon of guests, organised by Gian Luca Favetto.
#18 @rivolicast
18 March–18 December
On top of the major exhibitions, the Castello di Rivoli will be celebrating its anniversary through #18 @rivolicast, a packed and exciting programme of events taking place at a fixed rate, marking time every 18th of the month from March to the date of the anniversary in December, which will constitute the culminating point of the celebrations for the 30th anniversary. There will be meetings with celebrities from the worlds of culture, actors, musicians, journalists, photographers, directors and artists, intellectuals and exponents of the contemporary scene and history of the Museum accompanying visitors each month in a long series of exhibitions, conferences, concerts, exclusive guided visits, participatory events and ‘works’ produced by the protagonists outside their usual professional scope or which present a transverse view compared to their usual production. The main theme of the events will be exodus, considering as such every cultural and geographical displacement, whether voluntary or forced.
The activities for the 30th anniversary are organised with the technical support of Kuhn & Bulöw and the media partnership of La Stampa.
Press Office Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea
Silvano Bertalot – Manuela Vasco
T +39 011 9565209 211 / press [at] castellodirivoli.org / s.bertalot [at] castellodirivoli.org
