MAXXI Rome: The Independent

CURA. and Isola Art Center.

June 26 – October 12, 2014.
www.fondazionemaxxi.it

Experimental workshops, publishing houses, exhibition spaces, online platforms and
magazines, independent projects, nowadays contemporary culture often moves through unofficial channels that prove to be a valid alternative to traditional methods of “culture-making.”
Starting on June 26 (until October 12, 2014) MAXXI opens up to all these realities with the first stage of the three-year project THE INDEPENDENT, initiated by Hou Hanru, with Giulia Ferracci and Elena Motisi and dedicated precisely to the promotion of independent groups present on both the national and international territory. The protagonists of this first appointment conceived for the museum are two Italian groups: CURA. a curatorial project based in Rome, and Isola Art Center, a “no-budget,” ultra-local project based in Milan.
In a space arranged on the staircases of MAXXI, CURA. presents the project Dreams That Money Can’t Buy, a choral exhibition that concerns the multiplication of images, experiences, relationships and forms, and the construction of a visual, aesthetic and conceptual imaginary aimed at creating an encyclopedic iconographic atlas. cura. has invited a group of artists who have been asked to fuel with their own intervention the kaleidoscopic imagery of a shared dream in which illustrated works, objects, citations and real life are combined.
A wall of collages with printed images and a series of screens that alternate for the three months’ duration of this event shows the video works of some international artists, synthesizing the tension between the eye and the viewer, between surface and collage, between the two-dimensionality of the support and the threedimensionality of the space, but also between image, value, object, presence-absence. The exhibition is completed with an area in which to consult books, sources and extracts from the magazine that refers to the ongoing project of an encyclopaedia of themes dealt with in the five years since the magazine was founded.

Artists involved: Adrien Missika, Andrew Norman Wilson, Anna Franceschini, Daniel Gustav Cramer, David Douard, Francesco Arena, Gabriele De Santis, George Henry Longly, Haris Epaminonda, Ian Cheng, Ian Tweedy, Ingrid Olson, Invernomuto, Jack Lavender, Jimmy Limit, Luca Francesconi, Maria Loboda, Martin Soto Climent, N. Dash, Neil Beloufa, Nico Vascellari, Nicolas Deshayes, Parker Ito, Per-Oskar Leu, Raphael Zarka, Riccardo Benassi, Richard Sides, Salvatore Arancio, Sara Cwynar, Tilman Hornig, Timur Si-Qin, Tomaso De Luca.

Presented on the cement wall of the museum hall is the project Isola Art Center FIGHT-SPECIFIC ISOLA which uses a never-before-seen installation to describe the group’s work and the context where it is hosted. A group portrait, a photograph taken by Paola Di Bello, dominates the space and portrays the residents of neighborhood and the artists of Isola Art Center during the first anniversary celebration of Isola Pepe Verde in May 2014. Isola Pepe Verde is an independent space conquered by the residents of the neighborhood after
decades of fighting to defend public space against building speculation and gentrification. It is a garden that is shared and self-managed, created in a place that was once a site used to store building materials, and later abandoned, and temporarily handed over to the citizens by the City of Milan. The goal was that of turning it into a permanent green space.

Also exhibited is the book Fight-Specific Isola. Arte, architettura, attivismo e il futuro della città, which tells the story of the thirteen years of Isola Art Center. The book also contains a Fotoromanzo, which, enlarged for the occasion, goes over several of the artists’ experiences, and critically reflects on the traumatic transformations recently undergone by the neighborhood.
Added to this is Lab Fight-Specific Isola silk screen works and three videos: Isola, una storia neoliberale italiana, tracing the phases of the neighborhood’s struggle: the slide show entitled Isola e dintorni, which shows the urban changes of the neighborhood in aerial photos taken between 1986 and 2011; Lab Fight- Specific Isola, which documents the reproduction on one wall of the +MSUM of Ljubljana of a 1976 mural painting against building speculation in this neighborhood in Milan.
This first appointment will also be the occasion to launch an open call to all the realities working in Italy aimed at realizing an Italian map and later European and international ones of all those independent realities operating in the contemporary culture sector, a cultural and social panorama of immense richness, and of great interest for the development of new models.

The open call starts from 25 June until 30 September 2014 all the information on www.fondazionemaxxi.it
At MAXXI, thanks to THE INDEPENDENT, these creative, autonomous groups find space to show their activities on themes that go from art, to architecture, to design, to dance, to music, eventually embracing larger areas such as publishing and urban studies. By interpreting the museum space with new and ever regenerated installation modalities ranging from talks, to perfomances, to lectures, the museum is transformed into a hub in which the independent voices and the public can meet directly, confirming the willingness to listen to and afford space to the most innovative contemporary voices in different research
areas.

CURA. Founded in 2009 by Ilaria Marotta and Andrea Baccin, CURA. is a moving and propulsive platform dedicated to the exchange and dialogue between critical voices, activities related to contemporary artistic production and to collaboration with institutions and independent bodies. The sections dedicated to curatorial approaches and the exploration of artistic practices are the many facets of a single, organic research project,
conducted via the pages of the magazine and developed in other contexts as well. The curatorial activities characterized by the nomadism of the projects and alternated at exhibitions held in the basement of CURA. are presented as the concrete development of the contents elaborated in the field of publishing, as well as a broader vision which makes use of a plurality of media. The editorial and curatorial consulting carried out at an international level places CURA. at the heart of important research and exchange projects in collaboration
with some of the major European institutions. Among these is PIANO, a curatorial exchange platform between Italy and France, promoted by d.c.a and L’Europe des Artistes, a project on a European scale promoted by Astrup Fearnley Museet of Oslo, Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Exhibitions curated recently include: The Time Machine (the Survivors), Frutta, Rome (2013); Sandy Island (AB project), Fondazione Nomas, Rome (2013); Commercial Road Project, London Metropolitan University, London (2010-2013). Forthcoming exhibitions include: Athletic Valentin, Galerie Valentin, Paris (October 2014), as well as an exchange program with international independent spaces, first
among which with Lissabon Kunsthalle, Lisbon.

ISOLA ART CENTER Isola Art Center is an open, experimental platform for contemporary art based in Milan’s Isola neighborhood, and powered by energy, enthusiasm and solidarity. Over more than a decade the project has had to face an urban situation characterized by conflict and global transformation, and it has thus remained precarious, ultra-local and without a budget. By abolishing any vertical rationale of work, the process of Isola Art Center rhizomatically involves artists, critics, curators from both Italy and abroad, artist’s groups, activists, architects, researchers, students, groups and neighborhood groups. For years the work carried out by Isola Art Center has been in harmony with the neighborhood associations: the residents take part in Isola Art Center’s activities at different levels, contributing to the realization of works (Tomas Saraceno’s Museo aero solar, or the shutters of the Permanent Green exhibition), hosting international artists, participating in actions, performances and workshops, and proposing new projects for the neighborhood
spaces. The request for a “Centro per l’Arte e il Quartiere” was in fact originally formulated by the residents themselves.

The publicity pack and images of the exhibition can be downloaded from the Reserved Area of the Fondazione MAXXI’s website at http://www.fondazionemaxxi.it/area-riservata/ by typing in the password areariservatamaxxi

MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo
www.fondazionemaxxi.it – info: 06.320.19.54; info@fondazionemaxxi.it
opening hours: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Fridaym, Sunday) 11 a.m. – 11 p.m.
(Saturday) closed on Monday, May 1, and December 25
UFFICIO STAMPA MAXXI +39 06 322.51.78, press@fondazionemaxxi.it