Contemporary research, experimentation with new exhibition formats and the valorisation of the Gallery’s heritage: these are the strategic nodes around which the three-year programme of the new GAMeC is structured, under the directorship of Lorenzo Giusti. An action plan which in 2019 will deal with some of the crucial themes of our time—gender, migration, feminism and identity—confirming the international vocation of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo.
Oscar Giaconia
Jacopo Miliani for the Artists’ Film International #11
Driant Zeneli
January 17–February 24, 2019
The season starts off with three projects curated by Sara Fumagalli and Valentina Gervasoni: the first solo show by Oscar Giaconia in an Italian museum; the presentation of the work of Jacopo Miliani as part of the 11th edition of the Artists’ Film International event, and the screening of the video trilogy by Driant Zeneli.
Hoysteria, in particular, is an examination of some of the most recent painting work produced by Oscar Giaconia (Milan, 1978). Innkeepers, forgers, old seadogs, sentinels, ghosts and monsters are the subjects that fill the Spazio Zero of the GAMeC, featuring a “contemporary degeneration of genre painting.”
Furthermore, the GAMeC’s participation continues in the Artists’ Film International, the prestigious worldwide network dedicated to video art that has involved leading international contemporary art institutions since 2008. For this the 11th edition, on the theme of Gender, the Gallery has selected the Italian artist Jacopo Miliani (Florence, 1979), featured here with two video works that elaborate the themes addressed in the film Teorema by Pier Paolo Pasolini: Deserto (2017) and TEOREMA TEOREMA TEOREMA (2018).
Lastly, the Projection Room hosts the video trilogy When Dreams Become Necessity by Driant Zeneli (Shkoder, 1983), the artist chosen to represent Albania at the upcoming Venice Biennale. The work constitutes a reflection on failure, meant not as an end but as an opportunity to imagine as of yet unexplored paths, drawing on the stimulus offered by new challenges.
Birgit Jürgenssen
March 7–May 19, 2019
On March 7, the first major retrospective in Italy of the work of Birgit Jürgenssen (Vienna, 1949–2003) will be held, curated by Natascha Burger and Nicole Fritz. The wide-ranging oeuvre of Birgit Jürgenssen reflects on and deconstructs stereotypical relationships, sexuality, socially determined notions of beauty and gender relations, all with subversive humour as if they were deeper layers of her own identity. The female body is the lynchpin of her works, characterised by a vigorous fantasy in the face of nature and which testify to an integral awareness that we exist in invisible interaction with the world around us.
The show, staged in collaboration with the Estate Birgit Jürgenssen, the Kunsthalle Tübingen and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, offers an overview of the entire oeuvre of the Austrian artist who died prematurely in 2003, through more than 150 works produced over 40 years of research, including her drawings, collages, sculptures, photographs, rayogrammes, gouaches and cyanotypes.
Jenny Holzer
May 30–September 1, 2019
In the summer months, the Palazzo della Ragione, in the heart of the 'Città Alta' of Bergamo, will once more be the external venue of the GAMeC: Jenny Holzer (Gallipolis, 1950), the well-known American artist who uses the written word as a means of social critique and creative expression, will present the public with a remarkable multimedia installation, especially designed for the prestigious Sala delle Capriate.
Jenny Holzer’s works speak of violence, oppression, prejudice, gender, sexuality, feminism and power. For the artist, the rhetoric of the languages of information and of advertising becomes a cutting tool with which to deal with issues of a political and social nature through brief and incisive statements that strike at the heart of common sense, dominant thought and prejudice. The project, curated by Lorenzo Giusti, will foster a stimulating dialogue between the subversive poetics of the artist and the architecture of the medieval building.
Luke Willis Thompson
La Collezione Impermanente (The Impermanent Collection) #2
May 30–September 1, 2019
Over the summer, GAMeC will also host the first solo show in an Italian museum institution of the work of Luke Willis Thompson (Auckland, 1988), curated by Edoardo Bonaspetti, Guest Curator of the first edition of a new exhibition project promoted as part of the Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi per l’Arte – EnterPrize.
The artistic practice of Luke Willis Thompson, shortlisted for the 2018 Turner Prize, includes film, performance, sculpture and installation, and deals with themes such as class, racial and social inequality, institutional violence, colonialism and forced migration. For his solo show at the GAMeC, the artist will present a new work conceived especially for the museum’s Spazio Zero.
Simultaneously, the second exhibition project of the cycle titled La Collezione Impermanente (The Impermanent Collection) will be on view: a platform which sets out to use the museum collection as a memory-activation tool through the use of innovative formats that foresee the direct involvement of the public. In particular, the show will provide the opportunity to present the public with a new set of works which, from this year onwards, will become part of the Gallery Collection, a set including works by Jean Arp, Christo, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Sol LeWitt, Giuseppe Penone, Ettore Spalletti, Emilio Vedova and Andy Warhol to name but a few.
Francesco Gennari
November 14, 2019–January 26, 2020
The 2019 season will close with a show of the work of Francesco Gennari (Pesaro, 1973), the result of collaboration between the Accademia Carrara and the GAMeC.
In particular, the exhibition will focus on the theme of self-representation, investigated through works that express the appearance of the artist in his physicality, his emotionality and his iconography. For Gennari, the self-portrait has various declinations, both conceptual and visual, but the most relevant note of his research consists in the choice of materials used, which often become metaphors for a state of mind, a psychological stance. The variability of materials and shapes that characterise this type of work allows for the construction of a variable displayscape.
