Bruna Esposito
Curated by Marcella Beccaria.
Francis Alÿs
Matrix.2
22 May - 01 September 2002
Curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev.
Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art
ph. +39/011.9565209
Press preview Monday, May 20, 2002, 11:30 a.m.
Opening May 22, 2002
Bruna Esposito Panni Sporchi, 1993.
The Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art has inaugurated a new exhibition series that expands the program of solo shows dedicated to the recent generation of artists. During 2002 the museum will present the work of three artists who are now receiving international acclaim. The Francesco Vezzoli exhibition (which continues until May 5th) will be followed by exhibitions of the work of Bruna Esposito, and, in September, Thomas Demand. Curated by Marcella Beccaria, this series is held in the historic rooms of the second floor of the Castello, with the goal of establishing a dialogue with the 18th-century spaces and with the works in the Museums permanent collection. Each exhibition is accompanied by a monograph.
Bruna Esposito was born in Rome in 1960. She has lived in New York and Berlin and currently lives and works in Rome. Winner of a fellowship at P.S.1 in New York, she has participated in international survey shows such as Documenta in Kassel (1997) and the Venice Biennale (1999). On the latter occasion, along with other Italian artists, she won the Golden Lion award for best national representation. Espositos work is based on interventions, often set in urban contexts, where a destabilizing element is crucial, sometimes in the form of a variation in tone, from the poetic to the ironic. In 1985 she created The Canoe in Flight (La Canoa in Volo), which, suspended in the air, traversed the canals of Berlin. In 1988 she created Watercolor (Aquarell), a bench built with mirror-planks in a nettle bush. She has returned to the theme of the bench on subsequent occasions and in different versions, as with the floating bench shown at the recent Venice Biennale. Bruna Espositos research develops an analysis of the role of art as an element of confrontation and reflection upon social and cultural themes that characterize our time. In 1993 she created The Holy Family (La Sagrada Familia), a performance that featured a walk through a working-class market in Rome by a family made up of a Black father and a White mother pushing a baby carriage that held a fish. The artists expressive investigation in some cases joins a provocative manner with the rigor of utopian projects. Taking advantage of two fellowships awarded to her by the IBA in Berlin (1987-1989), she created a work based on the designing of new types of public toilets that allow ecological recycling, without waste. The artist transforms these facilities into places filled with greenery, water and light. The exhibition at Castello di Rivoli will be Espositos first solo exhibition in an Italian museum and will include two recent installations and a new work conceived for the museum spaces. This will be an occasion for a direct encounter with the work of this artist, who always requires that she personally experience a high degree of physical and psychological involvement, which she conveys to the viewer. The first monograph dedicated to Esposito will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.
Francis Alÿs. Matrix.2
Curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev
Press preview Monday, May 20, 2002, 11:30 a.m.
Opening May 22, 2002
Francis Alÿs, born in 1959 in Antwerp, has lived and worked in Mexico City since 1987. After studying in Belgium and at the Institute of Architecture in Venice, he began exhibiting in 1990 and had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1995. He has participated in numerous international survey shows, including the V Biennial de la Habana, Cuba, 1994; NowHere, Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Denmark; and Inclusion / Exclusion, Steirischer Herbst 96, Graz, Austria, 1996. In 1998 he participated in numerous group shows, including the Sao Paolo Biennial, Brazil; Loose Threads, Serpentine Gallery, London; and Mexellente, the Yerba Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA. The following year he exhibited at the Istanbul Biennial, the 48th Venice Biennale, the Melbourne Biennial; and the group show Mirrors Edge at the Bildmuseet in Umeá; the Vancouver Art Gallery; Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Tramway Gallery in Glasgow. His projects in alternative art spaces include an intervention for the web site of the Dia Center for the Arts, New York, 1998, and 1-866-FREE MATRIX at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, 2001. Matrix.2, now presented at Castello di Rivoli, is the first project of this type by Alÿs in Europe. This year he is a finalist for the Guggenheim Museum in New Yorks prestigious Hugo Boss Prize. In 2003 the Centro de Arte Contemporanea Reina Sofia in Madrid will hold a solo exhibition of the artists work.
Matrix.2
Matrix.2 is a work that is located in an institutional space but, at the same time, is projected beyond the institutions physical boundaries. In fact, the artist introduces himself into the communications system of the museum institution, utilizing the coordinates of the telephone call center system, the ET Infotree Advanced Edition of the ET Electronic Telecommunications used at Castello di Rivoli. The public, after dialing a pre-established museum telephone number (+39-011-9565255, toll-free from Italy 800-180281), will enter a labyrinthine system of automatic responses, like those now normally in use in offices. However, after the ritual welcome, callers are presented with disquieting options.
If you know where you want to go, press 1; If you want to know where to go, press 2; If you go where you are knowing, press 3; If you know where you are going, press 4.
Thus entry into an unknown universe begins for the visitor, where the voices of a man and a woman evoke and refer to Good, Evil, destiny, joy, and grief. We are asked to choose, pressing the key corresponding to our opinion; these are choices that seem definitive and have to do with the fate of mankind. Matrix.2 is the first project curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, new Chief Curator of the Museum.
For more information go to: www.e-flux.com/site2002/index.phtml?client=welcome/castell o/
