Artissima

Writing about another art fair could be boring- but this is Turin’s Artissima (17)  so there is a difference.   The difference is that this is a fair that is financially supported by the city of Turin,  a concept that would be foreign for London and Frieze or Paris and the FIAC. The depth of support is reflected in the subsidized purchase of works from the fair for a value up to 350,000 euros, the works chosen  destined  for the collections of the two major museums in Turin, Castello di Rivoli and GAM.

Francesco Manacorda

Francesco Manacorda is the new director for Artissima having taken over the role from Andrea Bellini,  now the co-director with Beatrice Merz of the Castello di Rivoli. Francesco was born in Turin and studied both in Turin and London where he later settled as a freelance curator before becoming the curator for the Barbican. While there he was responsible for the  "Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art" (co-curated with Lydia Yee, 2008) a highly regarded show that reflects his intelligent and innovative thought processes. Why Artissima? He says that he wanted ‘freedom from institutions.’

Francesco, like many other leading contemporary curators has been studying the ‘crossover of the arts,’ in particular literature, philosophy, science and dance. In order to house the now de rigeur cultural programme he commissioned the German cooperative RAUMLABOR to design a section of the fair which he hoped would provoke and entice a new audience to the fair. Words like Dance, Literature and Poetry now figure in all visual arts cultural programmes, and this one is no different.

Raumlabor's temporary sculptures

I like Francesco enormously and would like to report that this was an enormous success but feel that the programme is a ‘work in progress’ with many good lessons learnt.  Artissima has moved into a new hall this year with its new director.  It was formerly an ice skating hall for the winter Olympics and has that strangely slick, slightly corporate look, very different from the slightly shabby hall that was used the year before.  It is noticeably more spacious with more room between the aisles to meander in but which also has the down side of seeming more anonymous and less intimate.  

To this slightly antiseptic environment the German collaborative RAUMLABOR  have introduced recycled seediness into the aptly named, House of Contamination taking here  the form of a large temporary structure. Iron scaffolding which creaks and strains surrounds bails of recycled paper and cloth heaps of old clothes, emitting a slightly sour smell.  Here on old washing machines and fridges the literary programme is unrolled, while in a temporary theatre a series of dance troops recreate performances. 

Manacorda had a hard act to follow.  Last year, Andrea Bellini rolled out a performance marathon which I partook of fully. So fully, in fact, that by the end I was dazed and confused, but also exhilarated and turned on by the variety and intensity of the events performed in the various unique theatres of Turin.  I will never forget the GELITIN performance in the stunning Teatro Regio designed by Turinese designer extraordinaire  Carlo Mollino, culminating in not one not two but eleven golden showers followed in the same location the next evening by Michelangelo Pistoletto’s recreation of his famous 1960s work, Anno Uno—Terzo Paradiso. Incorporating many of the same performers or in some cases their children or even their grandchildren, the carefully choreographed event was a complete contrast to the anarchic  antics of the evening before.  Add to this, Jim Shaw’s, band, ‘A Tone, Meant for Your Sins, a homage to proto-punk group Destroy All Monsters that Shaw had formed  along with fellow artists Mike Kelley and  Niagara, and filmmaker Cary Loren, Matt Mullican, self hypnotic state and Cao Fei’s avatar live masturbating performers and you get some idea of what I saw.

 

Francesco’s programme included a recreation of Oskar Schlemmer-4 Reconstructions by Debra MacCall. It was nice but taking place next to the bazaar atmosphere of an artfair, no matter how polite a fair it is, it was hard to get into the  mood.

Jonathan Safran Foer's Tree of Codes

Later-perched on an old washing machine made it difficult to fully appreciate the beauty of New York writer, Jonathan Safran Foer’s newest work, Tree of Codes.  This slim tome illustrates Francesco’s desire for cross over, here Safran Foer transforms his favorite work of fiction, Bruno Schulz’s “Street of Crocodiles, into something more sculptural than literary.   Jonathan confirms that his  is not a new idea,’I took my favorite book, and by removing words carved out a new story. It was hardly an original idea: it’s a technique that has, in different ways, been practiced for as long as there has been writing — perhaps most brilliantly by Tom Phillips in his magnum opus, “A Humument.” But I was more interested in subtracting than adding, and also in creating a book with a three-dimensional life’.

John Stezaker

Wandering back into the gracious wide aisles of the fair there was lots however to cheer about. Back to the Future, produced mini one-man shows that included some real winners, some living, some dead.  I particularly liked the Lisson stand of John Stezaker  displaying his sculptural books - great or at least important imposing books – including Collected British Law,  enveloped by thick tarry gloop, books as you have never seen them before.

Franco Guerzoni

Franco Guerzoni an artist from Modena who I had never come across before.  I am transfixed by the work, decorative, in the same way as Christo yet none the worse for it.  Here are the insides of buildings, revealed by demolition, their archaeology picked out in geometric squares of paint.  Books appear too, in groups of photographs with collaged elements embedded into the surface.  In one a series of razor blades, in another the surface is filled with folded sheets of decorative paper.

There are discoveries to be made in the main fair as well.  Strong showings by Italian galleries is to be expected, and I like the stand by Gonzalez y  Gonzalez, from Santiago,  Chile, spearheaded by Jota Castro whose sculpture work here, Go Kids Go, consists of festive helium  balloons as seen at  children’s parties and shops around Latin America,  attached to bullets, both catch the eye and exercise the mind.  Castro comes originally from Chile but is currently based in Brussels.  He runs the gallery as almost an artists cooperative, reflecting the need for an outlet for contemporary art in Chile.  He says many of the artists on the stand have international representation but nowhere to show in their home. 

Balloons aplenty in the Castello di Rivoli with their Philippe Parreno installation, Snow Dancing-Speech Bubbles.  The top floor of the castello is filled with shimmering silver balloons in the shape of sound bubbles.  I talk to Philippe who tells me that he does not know how long the work will last.  Helium is unpredictable and  does funny things in different locations.  The speech bubble shape is not a new one for him, but silver is, and when I point out the Warhol connection he shoots back that it only came to him once the balloons were in place.  The balloons come out of the idea of procession and events, something that Parreno has been thinking about recently.  As a multi practitioner, Parreno makes films, drawings and performances, the vestigial balloons of an event, now past makes sense.  And they are pretty as they nestle in the rafters. 

Phillipe Parreno

The lower floors of the castle have been reinstalled, highlighting the depth and strength of the Castello’s permanent collection. Here is displayed the work of Massimo Grimaldi who presents his 10.000 euros.  winning piece  for the 2009 Fellowship for Young Italian Artists. The work, Emergency’s Paediatric Centre in Goderich  is explained to me by curator Marcella Beccaria of the Castello di Rivoli.   It is not the images of the hospital displayed here that is the work but the act of applying for the prize.  The cash award does not go in this case to Massimo Grimaldi the winner, but as per his instructions directly to the NGO, Emergency which uses the proceeds to build much needed hospitals in Africa.  Massimo has in the past raised some 750,000 euros this way and Emergency has build a hospital with the money in the Sudan.    I meet the artist and ask him where he has studied, and then answer the question before he can answer, Alberto Gerruti, the visionary teacher from Breara in Milan.  He looks startled at my prophecy but then I explain my reasoning.  Gerruti is an enabler, not an enforcing teacher and it is reflected in the work of his illustrious pupils, some now in the permanent collection including Paola Pivi and Lara Favoretta.  Massimo is an interesting artist, bucking the market strangle hold on much contemporary art.

I love this museum, it has both a wonderful building, view and permanent collection, and even when I don’t buy into their temporary shows totally, the current  show, the first under the leadership of Bellini and Merz,  by young British Curator, Adam Carr  Exhibition, Exhibition is not my favorite, there are some  great works  in it, including perhaps not surprisingly a strong show of Arte Povera verterans, Turinese artist, Giulio Paolini, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Giuseppe Penone.  Paolini’s work,  incorporates his first painting, ‘geometric drawing’ (1960) and one he made exactly 50 years later installed at either end of the super-size long room. 

Penone displays ‘Being River 6’d (1998) which at first seems to be merely two similar stones.  In fact, Penone found them in two different locations and carved the second to appear to be identical to the first.  A conceptual and rigorous idea which leads to a case of spot the difference.

 Pistoletto shows two photographic works, the conference, (1975) in which the viewer becomes the viewed and a floor work, Five Wells and interactive work in which the viewer is mirrored  in the work. Creating a situation where it is impossible to not see oneself while viewing the work. 

Not to be outdone there is work by a younger generation which captures the imagination including a double incarnation of Tino Sehgal a work from 2000 and like Paolini his first work provocatively entitled, Instead of allowing some things to rise up to your face dancing bruce and dan and other things.  And although a singular work,  Seghal uniquely allowed it here to be presented by two interpreters performing as per Seghal’s instructions the movements of Bruce Nauman’s ‘Wall Positions’ (1968)  and  Dan Graham’s  ‘Roll’, (1970).  It is powerful stuff, the integration of live performance into the gallery space.

Not to be intimidated by the Castello di Rivoli, local international art world player Patrizia Sandretto re Rebaudengo has established her foundation in a beautiful building designed by Calude Silvestrin Patrizia hosts shows bolstered by her impressive international collection  but  also embraces  other foundations working with contemporary art.  This time the focus is on young Russian artists, brought together by Francesco Bonami and ??? working with a new Russian foundation, the

The other fantastic thing about Artissima is that it is in Turin, a city so full of beautiful architecture, food and drink that it is not a penance to be there.  For the contemporary art  cultural tourist there is not only  the Castello di Rivoli and GAM but also Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo run by the perpetually glamerous Patrizia Re Rebedaungo. 

 I get stuck into Piedmoentese wines the moment I get there, one of my favorites is nebbiolo but there is also a case for Barbera d’asti, and the more revered barberesco.  My personal favorite a slightly sparkling red, Bonado.  Yum yum yum