The research of Agnes Questionmark—the cover story of this spring issue—conveys the implicit sense of discomfort and sacrifice when a human being moves from one state (human) to another (transhuman). This awareness of sacrifice recurs in a conversation with Gea Politi, in which the artist, addressing sensitive issues such as gender transition, reconstructs the genesis of her own practice that is currently focused on the human genome and genetic engineering: “The basis of our body, our evolution, our potential, are unknowns. Thanks to the machine we can know ourselves and we cannot separate ourselves from it, from the artifact. We are in turn artificial beings.”
Gabriele Garavaglia arrives at a similar sense of perceptual indivisibility by investigating the idea of the living installation or walking image, in which actions and things coexist on the same liminal plane between reality and fiction. In dialogue with Alessandro Bava, the artist talks about his relationship with architecture and artifice, which he pursues by modifying existing environments and/or people, pushing the idea of performativity to its limits.
Decidedly more formal and in some ways more conventional modes of productivity are found in the practices of Monia Ben Hamouda and Alice Ronchi. Developing her work around the question of her origins, Monia Ben Hamouda brings to life gestural exorcisms that echo her family history and North African traditions. Mohamed Amer Meziane and Anissa Touati place emphasis on the artist’s calligraphic sculptures that twist the Arabic language by inventing a new vocabulary. Vincenzo Di Rosa, in a timely survey of Alice Ronchi’s work—which transitions from different languages and mediums—frames her work as a “place of passage of the imagination where everyday epiphanies coexist with the world of invention.”
Piero Gilardi was a pivotal figure in the second half of the twentieth century as well as in the annals of this magazine. As a special tribute on the occasion of his passing, we republish his Letters published in Flash Art between 1967 and 1968, a diaristic account of his travels between the United States and Northern Europe; some unpublished letters sent to Giancarlo Politi between 1968 and 1972; and a text by Marco Scotini, originally published on the occasion of the magazine’s fiftieth anniversary (no. 335 October–November 2017). This TIME MACHINE reveals the key role Gilardi played in fostering post-minimal, poverist, and conceptual trends, as well as in seminal exhibitions in the 1960s.
Also in this issue: a visual project curated by SAGG Napoli that approaches the practice of Betty Bee, with whom she shares the role of “artist-woman-Partenopean”—a designation that both artists question, challenge, and redefine. The visual component is the result of a dialogue moderated by Lorenzo Xiques in Betty Bee’s studio. CRITIC DISPATCH is a critical lunge by Alessandra Raengo at Vasilis Katsoupis’s new film Inside (2023) starring Willem Dafoe. Raengo addresses the theme of the “ecology of (art) curation” and reflects on and critiques the prominent role of the art collection within the film’s narrative. Finally, we present a new episode of CROSS/ROADS curated by Ilaria Gianni and Eleonora Milani, in collaboration with Simone Ciglia, dedicated to the polyphony of the Abruzzo region.
Reviews
Roberto Cuoghi Fridericianum, Kassel by Philipp Hindahl / Adelaide Cioni Ab ovo / On Patterns Mimosa House, London by Phoebe Cripps / Riccardo Benassi Morestalgia ICA, Milan by Giovanna Manzotti / Eric Nathaniel Mack Felt Galleria Franco Noero, Turin by Mariacarla Molè / Yuri Ancarani Atlantis 2017–23 MAMbo, Bologna by Bianca Stoppani / Andrea Bocca Props Palazzo Monti, Brescia by Valentina Bartalesi / Giulia Piscitelli Pittura Muta Galleria Fonti, Naples by Anna Cuomo / sub MACTE, Museo Arte Contemporanea di Termoli by Stefano Mudu / An indicative present. Positions and perspectives of contemporary art in Rome La Galleria Nazionale, Rome by Cecilia Canziani / Jacopo Belloni Mimema ADA, Rome by Giulia Pollicita.
This issue will be available at miart, Milan.
