In keeping with the theme of the latest edition of the Triennale di Milano, we decided to dedicate the fall issue to “dark” zones, those omitted from discourse, those that escape the human gaze. How do we relate to dark zones of existence? What value do we place on trauma, on illness?
Illness also rages in the issue’s cover story dedicated to RM (a collective known as Real Madrid). Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, reflecting on the work of the artists, points out how one of the illnesses of contemporary society is relegated to the personal sphere and is accompanied by stigma: that of living in economic conditions with health care below a certain threshold—the completely perceptible but shamefully hidden threshold that separates the have from the have-nots who still try to be in the world. In this sense for the collective, RM overturns this disparity with a sense of pride and an ability to live with and even laugh at illness and the ups and downs of life.
Darkness also seems to be the abode of the monstrous creatures that pervade the work of Diego Perrone, whose nearly thirty-year artistic career is reassessed by Luca Cerizza in an essay that delves into his institutional exhibitions from 2005 to the present. If the core of Perrone’s work seems to be to emphasize issues that spectacular society tends to elide, such as difference, pain, emotion, old age, or death, that of Portuguese artist Diana Policarpo is to be found in the unraveling of stories silenced by official timelines. Indeed, as Ilaria Gianni writes, Policarpo’s work focuses on the excavation of subaltern dynamics rooted in logics of power and normativity, which have controlled resources and created economies heedless of the lives of others.
Investigations into the territories of the removed, the deviant, and the marginal could also describe the approach of the nomadic collective MRZB, which for this occasion conceived a visual essay centered on the new project RUSTY S. PITTY BLUE or The Sisters I-IV (2022). In conversation with Francesco Tenaglia, the group talks about their “sprawling” art practice and the history of the studio-exhibition space they have built on the banks of the Stura stream in the northern suburbs of Turin. The disturbing aesthetics of MRZB’s polyphonic assemblages are countered by the kinetic-programmed experimentation of Grazia Varisco, Marinella Pirelli, and Gianni Colombo, in which the space of the work is technically revealed by the dynamic action of light in the dark. In the Dossier titled “Accendere lo spazio,” Valentina Bartalesi traces a history of dark environments created between the 1960s and 1970s, outlining a sort of “nocturnal itinerary” in Italian art. The Dossier is accompanied by a visual project that brings together a constellation of dark installations, such as Luna (1968) by Fabio Mauri, Sfere per Amare (1969) by Luca Maria Patella, and Ambiente-Strutturazione a parametri virtuali (1969) by Gabriele Devecchi.
Also in this issue: Frank Wasser addresses the curatorial limitations of the controversial Documenta 15 curated by the ruangrupa collective; Laura Tripaldi offers a reading of the 23rd Triennale di Milano as a contrast between the celebration of the scientific gaze and the awareness of its shadows. In the new episode of the column CROSS/ROADS, Ilaria Gianni, Eleonora Milani, and Michele Bertolino explore beyond the vector grid of Turin, looking at contours and realities such as Amphibia, the CROSS Festival, queernotqueerness, Spazio Kor, and the Torinodanza Festival.
Reviews: Piero Gilardi Tappeto-Natura Magazzino Italian Art, Cold Spring (New York) / Marcel Broodthaers Poesie industriali MASI, Lugano / Lorenza Longhi & Megan Marrin Charivari Ordet, Milan / Christian Frosi La stanza vuota GAMeC, Bergamo / Claire Tabouret I am spacious, singing flesh Palazzo Cavanis, Venice / Sylvie Fleury Turn Me On Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin / Elena Mazzi Di rame, cera, ferro, glicini e ghiaccio PAV—Parco Arte Vivente, Turin / Candice Breitz Never Ending Stories FMAV—Palazzina Dei Giardini, Modena / Afterimage MAXXI, L’Aquila
The issue will be available at Paris+ par Art Basel, Paris; Artissima, Turin; Roma Arte in Nuvola, Rome; and Vienna Contemporary, Vienna.
