8 1/2: a selection of works

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A selection of works from the exhibitions organized by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
Darren Almond, Pawel Althamer, John Bock, Maurizio Cattelan, Martin Creed, Tacita Dean, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Urs Fischer, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Paul McCarthy, Paola Pivi, Anri Sala, Tino Sehgal

13 January – 6 February 2011

curated by Massimiliano Gioni

Stazione Leopolda, Viale Fratelli Rosselli 5
Florence, Italy
info@fondazionenicolatrussardi.com
Open daily, 10am – 8pm
Free admission
www.fondazionenicolatrussardi.com

To mark the centennial of the Trussardi Group, the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi is presenting 8 1/2, an exhibition produced in collaboration with the Fondazione Pitti Discovery, which will open the celebrations for the hundredth anniversary of the fashion house. The first major group show organized by the Foundation, set in the monumental spaces of Stazione Leopolda in Florence, 8 1/2 brings together the works of the thirteen international artists to whom the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi has dedicated ambitious solo exhibitions and public art projects in Milan in the last eight and a half years, from 2003 to the present.

Like a carnival parade, 8 1/2 brings together for the very first time the works of Darren Almond, Pawel Althamer, John Bock, Maurizio Cattelan, Martin Creed, Tacita Dean, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Urs Fischer, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Paul McCarthy, Paola Pivi, Anri Sala, and Tino Sehgal: artists who have established themselves over the last decade as some of the most significant figures in the international art scene. 8 1/2 presents an overview of the most groundbreaking projects produced to date by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, retracing the key stages of its activity and illuminating a chapter in the history of recent contemporary art.

A nomadic museum and agency for the promotion of contemporary art and culture, the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi organizes and produces major exhibitions specially conceived for forgotten buildings, architectural landmarks, and symbolic spaces around Milan, restoring them and reopening them to the city and to the public. For the first time, with 8 1/2, the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi is organizing an exhibition in Florence, where from 11 to 14 January 2011 the Trussardi Group will be the main event at Pitti Immagine Uomo 79, carrying forward the Foundation’s mission to spread and promote the languages of contemporary art. 8 1/2 is a chance to discover not just the activity, but the fundamental strategies of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi.

As evoked by the title borrowed from Federico Fellini’s legendary film, 8 1/2 is a carousel of dreams that unfurls through the majestic nineteenth-century naves of Stazione Leopolda.

*Image above:
Photo by Cecilia Alemani.