The Most Beautiful Kunsthalle in The World
A project for the Contemporary Arts Centre of Como
Thursday, 15 September 2011, 6pm
Marco De Michelis interviews Vicente Todolífondazioneratti.org
The most beautiful Kunsthalle in the World opens its new season with its twelfth encounter, a conversation between Marco De Michelis and Vincente Todolì. During the last 24 years Todolí has directed three of the most importantinstitutions for contemporary art and culture in Europe, giving them his identity and making of them a model to take highly into consideration when thinking about the conditions that constitute an exemplar cultural centre. The institutions ran by Vicente Todolì were: IVAM, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia, of which he was Chief Curator (1986–88), and then Artistic Director (from 1988–96); subsequently he became the founding Director of the Serralves Foundation, Oporto, in 1996, an institution he launched, creating an important part of the collection. In 2003 he was appointed Director of the Tate Modern, London, one of the most important art institutions in Europe and worldwide, a position he left in the Summer 2010.
This conversation between the Director of Fondazione Antonio Ratti and Vicente Todolì will focus on his career and wide experience in order to analyse the role and identity of the curator and museum director and its changing function over time. It will also review the philosophy and character of these three institutions, pillars of contemporary culture, taking this overview to launch ideas and proposals for the constitution of the most beautiful Kunsthalle in the world.
Vicente Todolì was born in Valencia, Spain in 1958. He graduated in Art History as a Fulbright Scholar at Yale University and City University of New York. He received an ISP Fellowship from the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1985.
In 1986 he was nominated Chief Curator of IVAM, a position he held until 1988, when he became Artistic Director (1988–96) of the same institution. In 1996 he joined Museu Serralves as its founding Director, and seven years later, in 2003, he was appointed Director of Tate Modern. In this institution he worked on different fronts, enlarging the awareness of the European public of some of the best-known artists of the Latin American context, with the exhibitions of Frida Kahlo (2005), Hélio Oiticica (2007) and Cildo Meireles (2008–2009). At the same time he organised the first retrospectives of some of the most important contemporary artists, such as Pierre Huyghe (2006), Fischli & Weiss (2007), Roni Horn (2009), Francis Alÿs (2010) and Gabriel Orozco (2011).
Todolí has been actively involved with many other international art institutions including the ICA Amsterdam and the Reina Sofia National Museum of Art in Madrid where he was a member of the Advisory Committees of both museums. In addition, he was member of the jury and the Advisory Committee of the 1995 Carnegie International and he was an adviser for Future, Past, Present (curated by Germano Celant) at the 1997 Venice Biennale. He currently serves on the Commission which reviews potential acquisitions for, and advises the Director of, the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), is a member of the Board for the European biennial exhibition, Manifesta, and one of the members of the Advisory Board of the Museo del Novecento, Milan.
The most beautiful Kunsthalle in the world is an international research project developed between 2010 and 2012 involving a wide range of curators, critics, historians of art, artists and professionals from diverse disciplinary fields and contexts, in an ongoing debate about exhibition practices of contemporary art in the beginning to the 21st century. The project is under the scientific responsibility of the Director of the Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Marco De Michelis, with the general coordination of Filipa Ramos. It is organized by Fondazione Antonio Ratti together with the Camera di Commercio di Como.
Fondazione Antonio Ratti
Villa Sucota, Via per Cernobbio, 19
22100 Como – Italy
Info: +39 031233211
ufficiostampa@fondazioneratti.org