June 15, 2016
Messeplatz 25
Basel
Switzerland
In preparation for the upcoming Grand Opening, scheduled for October 16, 2016, the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art will relocate to the Art Basel Fair for an international presentation of the museum. The gathering—open to the press and the international art community—will take place on June 15, 2016 at 10am at the Swissôtel Le Plaza Basel (Messeplatz 25, 4005 Basel).
This is an important opportunity for the international community to discover the evolution of the new Pecci Centre and to take its first look at the innovative programme. The Pecci Centre will reopen this autumn upon the completion of the futuristic, spaceship-shaped extension by Rotterdam-based architect Maurice Nio, and the renovation of the original structure. The Pecci Centre will be the only public contemporary art institution in Italy to open between the years 2010 and 2020, and one of the few in Europe.
Speakers at the event will include: Matteo Biffoni, Mayor of the City of Prato; Monica Barni, Vice President and Head of Culture of the Region of Tuscany; Irene Sanesi, President of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in Tuscany (which manages the Pecci Centre); and Fabio Cavallucci, Director of the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art. They will present the Grand Opening programme and inaugural exhibition, The End of the World, as well as the new, ambitious and multifaceted plan to become an international must-see.
The Pecci Centre was inaugurated in 1988, and was the first institution in Italy specifically built from scratch for exhibiting, collecting, conserving and documenting the most advanced artistic research. It is set to become an international reference point for the experimentation of multiple contemporary art languages. The mission of the Pecci Centre is to explore all the various disciplines of contemporary culture in an attempt to further understand the key changes affecting our ever changing, modern day society.
The inaugural exhibition, The End of the World, explores the theme of contemporaneity at a crossroads of the past, present and future and is curated by Fabio Cavallucci, with contributions from international advisors such as Antonia Alampi, Luca Barni, Myriam Ben-Salah, Marco Brizzi, Lorenzo Bruni, Jota Castro, Wlodek Goldkorn, Katia Krupennikova, Morad Montazami, Giulia Poli, Luisa Santacesaria, Monika Szewczyk, and Pier Luigi Tazzi. The theme does not derive from a catastrophic vision, rather from the consideration that the world we have known up to now is obsolete. None of our tools for interpreting reality, even the conceptual ones, are able to understand it any longer. We are compelled to look at the world from afar and to consider the immeasurable cosmic distances and time periods in the history of the earth and universe—compared to which the existence of humankind is an insignificant speck. Upon entering, visitors will experience the sensation of being projected thousands of light years away through works such as those of Carlos Garaicoa, Thomas Hirschhorn, Henrique Oliveira and Qiu Zhijie. Other elements of the exhibition will include works by architect Didier Fiuza Faustino, playwright and actor Pippo Delbono and electronic musician Joakim.
Follow the preparation of the exhibition opening and share in its development through the Journal on the site. It is a platform for research and discussion which hosts essays, interviews and contributions from intellectuals (including writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II, physicist and director of the Scuola Normale Superiore Fabio Beltram and journalist Wlodek Goldkorn) in order to explore and analyse the complexities of the contemporary ethos. Other upcoming features will include articles by Noam Chomsky, Luis Sepúlveda and Pascal Gielen. A place of participation, this tool is interactive and open to all those wishing to add to the debate with comments and proposals.
The Foundation for Contemporary Arts in Tuscany was established by the Comune di Prato and is supported by the Region of Tuscany. The Grand Opening will be made possible by Terna and Chianti Banca.
