June 27, 2023
How does one begin to tell an odyssey? For Raffaela Naldi Rossano—the subject of this summer issue’s cover story—there are three basic elements. The first is home, a recurring element in the artist’s practice, here taking the form of transformed domestic objects that, as Francesco Urbano Ragazzi writes, move art “away from the capitalist solitude of the last thirty years to reconnect with history.” The second is the sea, specifically a Mediterranean boat trip that engenders the artist’s practice of de-subjectivization as well as a constellation of initiatory experiences. The third is the song of the muses, through which the artist looks at myth as a pattern applicable to infinite narratives.
“Wherever there is air, there is life, there are smell molecules.” This conviction is at the heart of Sissel Tolaas’s project for Pompeii Commitment. Archaeological Matters. In conversation with Andrea Viliani, Tolaas explains how she applied her process of sampling and recording smells to the excavations of the archaeological park, and expands on the importance of smell as a tool for perceiving new information through unconventional approaches and methodologies.
Of a more political posture is Binta Diaw’s practice, in which organic materials and forms are transformed into installations of remarkable symbolic power. Diaw is a woman, Black, a feminist, and part of the “second generation” of Afro-Italians. As Stefano Mudu points out, her research is as much about her own identity as about how this identity inevitably intertwines with a more global narrative rooted in colonialism, and it addresses “the responsibility to draw on an iconographic repertoire referable to the history of communities around the world,” providing an alternative to the stereotypical Eurocentric gaze.
Political in a different sense is Francesco Vezzoli’s position regarding the role of curator. In conversation with Francesco Stocchi, the artist traces his curatorial projects from the past decade, including his latest, VITA DULCIS: Fear and Desire in the Roman Empire, now on view at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. Vezzoli describes these projects, with their subtle critiques of the art system, as the result of personal obsessions that he tries to make universally relatable to viewers.
Also in this issue: a visual project curated by the ALMARE collective, accompanied by a conversation with Giulia Gregnanin that focuses on the Life Chronicles of Dorothea Ïesj S.P.U., an audio recording narrating the precarious life of a researcher living in an all-too-likely dystopian future. Critic Dispatch by Domenico Quaranta is an in-depth look at the mysterious processes of SALAMI (Systematic Approaches to Learning and Machine Inferences), more commonly known as artificial intelligence, and how the danger does not lie in its personalization but rather in the debate that ensues. On the occasion of the solo exhibition The Poet and the Magician at MAXXI, Rome, we dedicate TIME MACHINE to Enzo Cucchi by revisiting his conversation with Giancarlo Politi and Helena Kontova, originally published in 1984, and here accompanied by previously unpublished documents from the Flash Art archive.
Reviews
Dara Birnbaum Fondazione Prada, Observatory, Milan / Ann Veronica Janssens Grand Bal Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan / Simone Fattal, Petrit Halilaj & Álvaro Urbano Thus waves come in pairs Ocean Space, Venice / Ambera Wellmann Antipoem Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin / Lee Lozano Strike Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin / Amy Sillman Temporary Object Thomas Dane, Naples / Klodin Erb A different kind of furs Istituto Svizzero, Rome / Alex Israel Fins Gagosian Rome / Nico Vascellari Falena MAXXI—Museo nazione delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome / Triennale Milan / Islamic Arts Biennale 2023 Western Hajj Terminal—King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah
