The Magnificent Obsession
26 October 2012–6 October 2013
A project by Cristiana Collu, with Nicoletta Boschiero, Veronica Caciolli, Margherita de Pilati, Duccio Dogheria, Daniela Ferrari, Mariarosa Mariech, Paola Pettenella, Alessandra Tiddia, Denis Viva, and Federico Zanoner.
Mart Rovereto
Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto
Corso Bettini 43, I-38068
Rovereto (TN), Italy
www.mart.tn.it/magnificaossessione
www.mart.tn.it/davidclaerbout
www.mart.tn.it/pacocao
The Mart, Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, is renewing its mission.
After ten years’ activity, the museum is being transformed to become a responsive, flexible institution, more democratic in assuring access to its holdings, more agile and independent in selecting and presenting its exhibition and curatorial projects.
The aim is to become a powerful device for understanding things, focusing on the very notion of what it means to be a modern and contemporary art museum in the 21st century.
The Mart’s public is the protagonist of an initial foray in this direction, starting on 26th October 2012, a date that sees the inauguration of a series of exhibitions, events, meetings with artists and interactive workshops.
The magnificent obsession will for a whole year offer the museum’s public a series of new itineraries through its collections—which are particularly packed, wide-ranging and rich in contrasts. An unprecedented project for the Mart, this exhibition has been defined by the director, Cristiana Collu, with an accumulation of adjectives: “Self-taught, water-diviner, auto-da-fé of works. Victim or protagonist, recomposed collection, disturbing and provocative, maniacal and fetishist. Obscure object of desire. Secret, sharing, intoxication, celebration. Giddiness of blending”.
The magnificent obsession claims a vision that is radically free of temporal dimensions; the works are placed alongside each other in accordance with a criterion that might be defined “anticipation of the present” or “archaeology of the future.” For this reason, the visitor will encounter an itinerary that is indeed chronological, but which in reality advances through major shifts in theme.
Of the over 1200 works on show, hundreds are on display for the first time; it will be possible to meet international artists in residence, like Paco Cao, or special guests, such as Emilio Isgrò and Liliana Moro, Christian Fogarolli and Paolo Meoni; it will be possible to examine the exciting work of a team that has shared the construction of the project, working in line with very different attitudes and sensitivities. So this has been a choral work, in which the layout seeks to cancel out any visual hierarchy and recreate a sensitivity close to the criteria of collecting and to the visual conditions of reality, rather than to a presumed neutrality of modern and contemporary exhibition rooms.
In parallel, the Mart is inaugurating a second line of research with the first Italian one-man show dedicated to David Claerbout (b. 1969; Kortrijk, Belgium). Curated by Saretto Cincinelli and open from 26th October 2012 to 13th January 2013, the exhibition is presented in close collaboration with the artist, who has selected works like Rocking Chair (2003), and The American Room (2009–2010).
Claerbout showcases not time in the image, but rather the “time of the image.” The artist places us literally in front of the matter of perception, and this generates a plurality of paradoxes that disturb the observer’s normal vision, inviting him to “open his eyes.” The images offered by Claerbout bear witness with the greatest force to the potential of digital media in opening up new perceptive, aesthetic and conceptual horizons for the contemporary vision.
Residences at the Mart
October 2012
Paco Cao (Asturias, Spain, 1965, based in New York) is the first of the artists invited to work at the Mart for a residence whose aim is to re-appraise the museum’s collections with direct interventions on the depiction of works on display. Another goal is to re-interpret the legacy of Futurism; Rovereto is the home town of Fortunato Depero, and houses the Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero, today one of the Mart’s venues.
With his “Psycho-linguistic-retro-futurist cabinet,” Paco Cao proposes a closely-thought operation within the spaces of Casa Depero, yet one that is at the same time “open to hedonism.” Whence the “Futurology sessions” and the “Psychological cocktail” services in which the worldly stance of Futurism offers the starting point for events that will appeal strongly to the local community.
