Exhibition program 2022–2023

Pirelli HangarBicocca unveils its 2022–2023 exhibition program. Eight monographic exhibitions by leading international artists: Anicka Yi, Steve McQueen, Bruce Nauman, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Gian Maria Tosatti, Ann Veronica Janssens, Thao Nguyen Phan, and James Lee Byars.

Over the next two years, Pirelli HangarBicocca will feature eight solo shows that bring forward a radical analysis of reality through the display of a wide range of media—such as installation, sculpture, moving image, drawing, and painting. The monographic projects will explore current and crucial topics such as the environment and human-induced climate change, the sense of belonging and community, the formation of identity and social roles, the perception of space and time, the potential of alternative rituals and forms of existence, political resistance and care for the Other.

The 2022–2023 calendar for the 15,000 square-metre Pirelli HangarBicocca has been devised by the Artistic Director Vicente Todolí together with the curatorial department. Each year, it features two exhibitions by established, historically acknowledged artists in the Navate space and two by younger and mid-career artists in the Shed. The 2022–2023 program also includes editorial activities, as the publication of a catalogue for each exhibition, comprising of newly commissioned critical texts as well as a rich photographic apparatus, including views of the exhibited works.

The Navate space will present exhibitions by: Steve McQueen (b. London, 1969) from March 31, 2022; Bruce Nauman (b. Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1941) from September 15, 2022; Ann Veronica Janssens (b. Folkstone, UK, 1956) from April 6, 2023; and James Lee Byars (b. Detroit, Michigan, 1932–d. Cairo, 1997) from October 2023. In the Shed space: Anicka Yi (b. Seoul, 1971) from February 17, 2022; Dineo Seshee Bopape (b. Polokwane, South Africa, 1981) from October 6, 2022; Gian Maria Tosatti (b. Rome, 1980) from February 23, 2023; and Thao Nguyen Phan (b. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 1987) from September 2023.

Exhibition program: 2022

Shed
Anicka Yi: Metaspore
Curated by Fiammetta Griccioli and Vicente Todolí
February 17–July 24, 2022

For her first solo show in an Italian institution, the Korean-American artist Anicka Yi is presenting an exhibition project that brings together more than 20 works, dating from 2010 to the present, together with a new expanded version of Biologizing the Machine (terra incognita), which was shown at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. Often privileging an invisible and immaterial dimension, employing elements such as air, scents and bacteria, Anicka Yi investigates new possibilities of interaction and communication between living organisms and artificial intelligence systems.

Navate
Steve McQueen
In collaboration with Tate Modern
Curated by Vicente Todolí and Clara Kim, with Fiontán Moran
March 31–July 31, 2022

The solo exhibition at Pirelli HangarBicocca devoted to Steve McQueen, one of the world’s most relevant contemporary artists, filmmakers, and screenwriters, is realized in collaboration with Tate Modern in London (where it ran from February 13 to September 6, 2020). The show at Pirelli HangarBicocca is conceived as a site-specific project, in which some of the artist’s most iconic artworks will be shown alongside a new production. The display provides a unique opportunity to experience in depth McQueen’s visual art career and it highlights the themes addressed in his works, such as those related to the concepts of identity and belonging.

Navate
Bruce Nauman: Neons, Corridors & Rooms
In collaboration with Tate Modern and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Curated by Vicente Todolí and Roberta Tenconi with Andrea Lissoni, Nicholas Serota, Leontine Coelewij, Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen and Katy Wan
September 15, 2022–February 26, 2023

Bruce Nauman’s retrospective at Pirelli HangarBicocca focuses on the artist’s spatial and architectural investigations, presenting for the first time a large number of his iconic corridors and rooms, as well as his experiments on the use of light, sound, language, and video. The exhibition, organised in collaboration with Tate Modern, London (October 7, 2020–February 21, 2021) and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (June 5–October 24, 2021), emphasises the most innovative and radical aspects of an artist who has marked the history of contemporary art since the mid-1960s.

Shed
Dineo Seshee Bopape
Curated by Lucia Aspesi and Fiammetta Griccioli
October 6, 2022–January 29, 2023

The solo exhibition of Dineo Seshee Bopape, her first in an Italian institution, brings together a wide range of works as well as new productions. Visitors will be drawn into a vast array of historical references and different geographical contexts, giving them the chance to explore her practice, which reflects on the relationships between rituals, spirituality and nature, on traditional healing practices, and on forms of political resistance.

Exhibition program: 2023

Shed
Gian Maria Tosatti: Hôtel de la Lune
Curated by Vicente Todolí
February 23–July 16, 2023

Gian Maria Tosatti’s artistic research focuses on the concept of community and memory, especially in terms of their historical, political, and spiritual significance. He has been working on Pirelli HangarBicocca’s exhibition for over two years, bringing together installations and historical works, and he has conceived a major environmental installation that will radically transform the space of the Shed.

Navate
Ann Veronica Janssens
Curated by Roberta Tenconi
April 6–July 30, 2023

The Belgian artist Ann Veronica Janssens questions our sensory perception of reality, often by creating works and situations that disorient the viewer. For Pirelli HangarBicocca, the artist is realizing an exhibition that retraces her artistic career, featuring historical works and new productions through an open dialogue with the architecture of the Navate.

Shed
Thao Nguyen Phan
Curated by Lucia Aspesi and Fiammetta Griccioli
September 2023–February 2024

Thao Nguyen Phan’s dreamlike visual language intertwines historical events and fairy-tales, to spark reflections on the environmental and social changes caused by the human exploitation of natural resources, and the destruction and colonisation of landscapes. The solo exhibition at Pirelli HangarBicocca presents her work in Italy for the first time,giving shape to cycles of life both spiritual and natural.

Navate
James Lee Byars
Curated by Vicente Todolí
October 2023–March 2024

The exhibition dedicated to James Lee Byars surveys the career of one of the most widely acclaimed artists from the 1960s to date, a pioneer of performance who challenged the concept of exhibition. For the first time, an Italian museum is presenting a retrospective of Byars’s emblematic works, examining the various media employed by the artist—such as installation, sculpture, performance, drawing, and speech—and his singular visual language, which combines motifs and symbols of Oriental cultures with a profound understanding and knowledge of Western art and philosophy.

Currently on view at Pirelli HangarBicocca: in the Shed space, Digital Mourning by Neïl Beloufa until January 9, 2022 and in the Navate space, Breath Ghosts Blind by Maurizio Cattelan until February 20, 2022.

*Images above: [1] Anicka Yi, Le Pain Symbiotique, 2014. Courtesy of the artist, Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels, and 47 Canal, New York. [2] Steve McQueen, Static (still), 2009. © Steve McQueen. Courtesy of the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery. [3] Bruce Nauman, Performance Corridor, 1969. © 2021 Bruce Nauman / SIAE. Courtesy of Sperone Westwater, New York. [4] Dineo Seshee Bopape, Lerole. footnotes (The struggle of memory against forgetting), 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam. Photo Aad Hoogendoorn. [5] Gian Maria Tosatti, Terra dell’ultimo cielo, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Lia Rumma, Milan and Naples. [6] Ann Veronica Janssens, Blue, Red and Yellow, 2001–. Courtesy of the artist and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Kim Hansen. [7] Thao Nguyen Phan, Tropical Siesta (still), 2017. Courtesy of the artist. [8] James Lee Byars, The Table of Perfect, 1989. © The Estate of James Lee Byars. Courtesy of Michael Werner Gallery, New York and London.