June, 3rd – July, 24th 2015
LA FAMOSA INVASIONE DEGLI ARTISTI A MILANO
Curated by Luca Beatrice and Ivan Quaroni
In a key moment for Milan, for the
second time location of the Universal Exposition after the historic
edition of 1906, artists, designers and writers are called to interpret,
through their works, splendour and misery of a constantly evolving
city. Middle earth of the subalpine plain and crossing point between the
Mediterranean and the European continent, Milan has always functioned
as an important melting pot of cultures, marking, with its development,
the course of History. Founded by the Celts in the IV century B.C., the
city, surrounded by the rivers Olona, Lambro and Seveso, already capital
of the Roman Empire, of the Lombard Kingdom and of the Cisalpine
Republic, wasn’t just one of the landmarks of the Risorgimento, but also
the epicenter of the Futurism movement and of the Industrial
Revolution.
During the Twentieth Century Milan was a
place of radical socio-cultural transformations, a workshop producing
thoughts and contemporary art, from the Ritorno All’Ordine of the 1900s
to the optical and kinetic experimentations of Azimuth and Group N.
Furthermore, in the shadow of the Madonnina, grew the myth of the
hard-working, somber city, but also the myth of the Milano Da Bere
of the Eighties, which became the emblem of the Hedonism. Crucial
center for fashion and design, today Milan is a global city, the third
largest in Europe after London and Paris, and the most visited Italian
one.
While the Expo tackles a broader theme,
such as the agro-alimentary resources matter, this exhibition
investigates the current identity of the city hosting it. The question
is whether the geographical and territorial centrality inherent to
Milan’s own toponym (Mediolanum – middle earth) still coincides
with a main and strategic role. By now, none of the artists is able to
make such a judgment, because only their vision, hanging in the balance
between fantasy and design, between nostalgia and utopia, is able to
finally give a face and an image to a dynamic reality, ceaselessly
progressing.
The show, inspired by the title of a well-known novel by Dino Buzzati (The Bears’ Famous Invasion Of Sicily), is divided in two exhibition grounds, the Sala Delle Colonne at the Fabbrica Del Vapore and the gallery Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea in Via Solferino.
Making a comparison between the works of renowned artists and designers
– from Marco Cingolani to Alessandro Mendini, from Salvo to Barnaba
Fornasetti, to Giovanni Frangi and Aldo Damioli – and the works of emerging artists and street artists, The Artists’ Famous Invasion Of Milan
proposes to sound out the different souls of the city in a random
space-temporal dimension, which alternates past and present, dream and
reality, lowbrow and intellectual culture, to reconstruct, for better or
worse, the identikit of a city more and more prismatic and
unfathomable.
Exhibition period:
From June 3 to July 24, 2015 c/o Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea
From June 3 to June 27, 2015 c/o Sala Delle Colonne – Fabbrica Del Vapore
Addresses:
ANTONIO COLOMBO ARTE CONTEMPORANEA – Via Solferino 44 – MILAN
Opening times: Tuesday / Friday 10 a.m. / 1 p.m. and 3 / 7 p.m. – Saturday 3 / 7 p.m.
SALA DELLE COLONNE c/o FABBRICA DEL VAPORE – Via Procaccini 4 – MILAN
Opening times: Tuesday / Friday 10 a.m. / 1 p.m. and 3 / 7 p.m. – Saturday 3 / 7 p.m.
