Inaugurated on June 21st, “That’s IT! On the last generation of artists in Italy and one meter eighty from the border” is the first exhibition curated by Lorenzo Balbi, director of MAMbo, which will remain in the museum halls until 11 November 2018 …
An exhibition that is among the top events of Bologna Estate 2018 and which presents the works of 56 between artists and collectives born from 1980 onwards, with a declared generational cut, investigating the most recent developments in art in our country and an overview of the Millennials generation, the first to experience a continuous adaptation to the frenetic evolution of technologies, constant hyper-interconnection and, on the social level, a growing precariousness of the world of work in a context of economic crisis.
The title of the exhibition, That’s IT – IT represents in this case also the code with which the European Union identifies Italy – refers to a series of questions in an open perspective, dialectic and magmatic around the variety in the possible combinations of place birth, studies and work of artists that becomes emblematic of a fluidity that shuns the labels: it still makes sense today to define an “Italian” artist? What contributes to determining the definition of “Italianità”? Does this definition have consequences on the self-representation of the artist? Where and how do we put the geographical and generational border?
To these questions the exhibition provides, if not direct answers, at least some important clues as for example the fact that among the 56 protagonists of the exhibition have been included artists born in Italy who work in Italy; born in Italy who work abroad; born in Italy who work both in Italy and abroad; born abroad who work in Italy; born abroad who work abroad, but who have studied in Italy.
Here are the protagonists, listed in order of birth year
Matilde Cassani (1980), Giuseppe De Mattia (1980), Margherita Moscardini (1981), Michele Sibiloni (1981), Riccardo Benassi (1982), Ludovica Carbotta (1982), Danilo Correale (1982), Andrea De Stefani (1982), Giulio Squillacciotti (1982), Marco Strappato (1982), Carlo Gabriele Tribbioli (1982), Ian Tweedy (1982), Invernomuto (Simone Trabucchi, 1982 and Simone Bertuzzi, 1983), Francesco Bertocco (1983), Giovanni Giaretta (1983), Lorenzo Senni (1983), Alberto Tadiello (1983), IOCOSE (Filippo Cuttica, 1983, Davide Prati, 1983, Matteo Cremonesi, 1984 and Paolo Ruffino, 1984), Elia Cantori (1984), Giulio Delvè (1984), Elena Mazzi ( 1984), Diego Tonus (1984), Calori & Maillard (Violette Maillard, 1984 and Letizia Calori, 1986), Federico Antonini (1985), Alessio D’Ellena (1985), Nicolò Degiorgis (1985), Riccardo Giacconi (1985), Adelita Husni -Bey (1985), Diego Marcon (1985), Ruth Beraha (1986), Elisa Caldana (1986), Roberto Fassone (1986), Francesco Fonassi (1986), Petrit Halilaj (1986), Andrea Kvas (1986), Beatrice Marchi (1986), The Cool Couple (Niccolò Benetton, 1986 and Simone Santilli, 1987), Filippo Bisagni (1987), Benni Bosetto (1987), Lia Cecchin (1987), Alessandro Di Pietro (1987), Stefano Serretta (1987), Giulia Cenci (1988), Tomaso De Luca (1988), Julia Frank (1988), Marco Giordano (1988), Orestis Mavroudis (1988), Valentina Furian (1989), Parasite 2.0 (Stefano Colombo, 1989 , Eugenio Cosentino, 1989 and Luca Marullo, 1989), Alice Ronchi (1989), Emilio Vavarella (1989), Irene Fenara (1990), Angelo Licciardello (1990) & Francesco Tagliavia (1992), Caterina Morigi (1991), Margherita Raso (1991), Guendalina Cerruti (1992).
The works that can be seen at MAMbo, which include installations, videos, photography, sound interventions, sculptures, performances, paintings, works on paper, are part of an open and barrier-free exhibition, which takes possession of all the museum spaces, such as those of the Educational Department and the bookshop, up to the adjacent Cavaticcio Park where, during the inauguration of Thursday 21 June, starting at 22 from the stage of the Biografilm Festival one of the artists on display, Lorenzo Senni will present the live set “Persona”, while a series of screenings of film works will be visible at the Cinema Lumière. To these physical spaces is added the new Instagram profile of MAMbo which for the occasion will be managed as a virtual exhibition room where materials produced by the artists will be visible.
The proposal of the MAMbo Educational Department is to be added to the exhibition proposing “The fabulous’ 80s” a special thematic format for girls and boys aged 12 and over, but also suitable for an adult audience and involving adolescents participating in Summer Camps of the Bologna Museums Institution in moments of creativity with the artists Irene Fenara and Adelita Husni-Bey.
And finally That’s IT !, is also a book with institutional texts by Matteo Lepore and Roberto Grandi and essays that reflect on the concept of generation in art, starting from the curator of the exhibition, Lorenzo Balbi to which are added those commissioned to: Lucia Aspesi; Giorgina Bertolino and Vittoria Martini; Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti and Gabriele Tosi with the contribution of Serena Osti; Michele D’Aurizio; Chris Fitzpatrick, Pavel Pyś and Kate Strain in a three-way conversation; Caterina Molteni, Fabiola Naldi, Marta Papini, Cesare Pietroiusti, Andrea Viliani.
The volume also contains the interviews of Stefano Vittorini to Alberto Garutti, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Penone and Michelangelo Pistoletto. A special section is dedicated to the interventions of the artists who, as in a further exhibition space, have conceived of ad hoc works, printed on detached and modular pages in the order that they prefer, making the publication become a sort of exhibition in the exhibition.
