Museum for Preventive Imagination: Summer 2021

#CHAMBERMUSIC. Franca Sacchi, Enstasi
June 10 – August 29, 2021

#BIBLIOGRAPHICOFFICE. Artists’ Library: 1989–2021
With Noah Barker, Éric Baudelaire, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Claudia de la Torre, Maria Eichhorn, Simone Fattal, Aaron Flint Jamison, David Horvitz, Tobias Kaspar, Giulio Paolini, Walid Raad, Georgia Sagri, Luca Trevisani
June 15 – September 5, 2021

#POLYPHONY. Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller, Songs of Experience
With works by Talia Chetrit, Philipp Fleischmann, Seiichi Furuya, Sophie Thun
With the participation of Eva Sangiorgi
June 22 – October 10, 2021

#REHEARSAL. Reba Maybury, Faster Than An Erection
July 2 – September 12, 2021

#IN-DESIGN. Julie Peeters, Daybed
July 8 – October 24, 2021

#SOLO/MULTI. Tony Cokes, This isn’t Theory. This is History
July 15 – October 17, 2021

#ARRHYTHMICS. Mario Diacono, Diaconia. Writing and Art
With works by Vito Acconci, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, David McDermott & Peter McGough, Donna Moylan, Claudio Parmiggiani
July 15 – October 24, 2021

#RETROFUTURE. Notes for a Collection
Carola Bonfili, Costanza Candeloro, Ludovica Carbotta, Alessandro Cicoria, Gianluca Concialdi, Giulia Crispiani, Giorgio Di Noto, Giorgia Garzilli, Beatrice Marchi, Diego Marcon, SAGG NAPOLI, Parasite 2.0, Francesco Pedraglio, Margherita Raso, Real Madrid, Davide Stucchi—in progress.

Ciao!

In June and July all my sections will update their content, each following their own rhythm, and will host new exhibitions, addressing a variety of themes and welcoming new artists, like the columns of a magazine.

CHAMBER MUSIC, Enstasi, June 10 to August 29, is a monographic project on the musical experimentation of Franca Sacchi. A selection of recordings—some unpublished and made available for the occasion—retrace the evolution of her approach to sound, composition, creativity and being. Franca Sacchi was one of the few women to take part in the electronic neo-avant-garde in Italy, composing works for artists like Giuseppe Chiari, Ugo La Pietra, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Paolo Scheggi. In the early 1970s she became interested in feminism, rejecting formal research and deciding to concentrate on improvisation as a method to achieve profound and universal authenticity.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC OFFICE, Artists’ Library: 1989–2021, June 15 to September 5, is a three-dimensional bibliography, an exhibition project where the audience can come across and delve into the ways of thinking, writing, collecting and creating of Noah Barker, Éric Baudelaire, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Claudia de la Torre, Maria Eichhorn, Simone Fattal, Aaron Flint Jamison, David Horvitz, Tobias Kaspar, Giulio Paolini, Walid Raad, Georgia Sagri and Luca Trevisani. Each artist has been asked to select three books by authors from any literary genre, published since 1989, which have influenced their approach to art and publishing. A book by each of the invited artists will also be added to the selection.

POLYPHONY, Songs of Experience, June 22 to October 10, presents a focus on the work of Friedl Kubelka vom Gröller. Her practice, which is based on the psychological portrait as a method, is reflected and expanded through a juxtaposition with works by other artists from different backgrounds. Over the course of the exhibition, artworks by Talia Chetrit, Philipp Fleischmann, Seiichi Furuya and Sophie Thun will be gradually added alongside the photographic work of Kubelka. The show also includes a series of screenings of the 16mm films the artist made under her filmmaker pseudonym, vom Gröller, and will be joined by the voices of the artist herself and of the artistic director of the Viennale, Eva Sangiorgi.

REHEARSAL, Faster Than An Erection, July 2 to September 12, examines the practice of the artist, writer and “political dominatrix” Reba Maybury. The artist will explore the meaning and role of transgression and perversion in the context of the museum by having Her submissive create the work for her. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication that includes the first chapter from Maybury’s upcoming book, Faster Than An Erection, a poem by writer and poet Cassandra Troyan, a selection of the contractual stipulations between the artist and the men who wish to submit to Mistress Rebecca (the pseudonym Maybury sometimes works under), as well as reproductions of a series of works conceived by Maybury and made by Her submissives. 

IN-DESIGN, Daybed, July 8 to October 24, presents an overview of the research of graphic designer Julie Peeters. Her approach can be defined as “image-heavy”: it is centered around the printed image, visual archives and the results they generate. BILL, the annual magazine she founded in 2017, is a sort of manifesto of Peeters’ obsessive investigation on the image. This ongoing interpretation of images is also based on a multidisciplinary approach, which takes form in the exhibition through an object with multiple functions, a furnishing element that becomes a platform of encounter and discussion with a series of guests, starting with RareBooksParis and their Martin Margiela archives.

SOLO/MULTI, This isn’t Theory. This is History, July 15 to October 17, is the first solo exhibition by Tony Cokes in Italy. The show brings together 15 video-based works and one newly commissioned piece, within a space of over 1000 square metres. The artist explores contemporary discourses on structural racism, war, and capitalism, through a process of sampling and subsequently re-framing and re-contextualizing sound, text and image drawn from mass media and pop culture. Starting with the artist’s seminal early film Black Celebration (1988), the exhibition itself is conceived as a work of art, and presents the artist’s practice in an entirely new framework: a hybrid between the white cube of the art space and the cinema’s black box.

ARRHYTHMICS, Diaconia. Writing and Art, July 15 to October 24, offers a portrait of art critic, poet, writer, gallerist and translator Mario Diacono, for the first time in exhibition form. From his studies in Rome in the 1950s, to his relationship with Giuseppe Ungaretti, to his move to the United States in 1968, all the way to the opening, in 1978, of his gallery, Mario Diacono’s life has always involved relationships with artists, such as Vito Acconci, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, David McDermott & Peter McGough, Donna Moylan and Claudio Parmiggiani. The exhibition features a constellation of ephemera, magazines, books, photographs and works dedicated to Diacono by the artists with whom he worked.

RETROFUTURE, the column dedicated to MACRO’s collection which expands through a stratification of projects in progress by young Italian artists, will grow with the participation of Real Madrid (June 22), Margherita Raso (July 13), and Alessandro Cicoria (September 14). Their works will join those by Carola Bonfili, Costanza Candeloro, Ludovica Carbotta, Gianluca Concialdi, Giulia Crispiani, Giorgio Di Noto, Giorgia Garzilli, Beatrice Marchi, Diego Marcon, SAGG NAPOLI, Parasite 2.0, Francesco Pedraglio and Davide Stucchi.

Please visit my website for updates, to explore extra content from past, present and future exhibitions, and to book your visit.
Enjoy the Roman summer!