ARTISSIMA 17: The International Fair of Contemporary Art in Turin Introduces a Host of New Features

TURIN.- Artissima 17, the International Fair of Contemporary Art in Turin, will be held from Friday 5 to Sunday 7 November 2010 under the artistic direction of Francesco Manacorda.

This event, the first to be directed by Manacorda, will be introducing a host of new features. First of all, it will be held in spectacular new premises: the Oval, a pavilion of unique architectural design, which was built for the 2006 Turin Olympic Winter Games.

Located in the Lingotto Fiere area, the Oval covers 20,000 sq.m., with natural lighting provided by over 15,000 sq.m. of continuous glass walls. It is the ideal venue for Francesco Manacorda’s project, which this year will be bringing together all the various aspects of the Fair in a single place. And this is the second new feature of Artissima 17: the cultural programme with all its many events will take place inside this pavilion, complementing and ensuring close interaction with the Fair. Artissima will develop the experimental identity which, over the years, has positioned it in a leading role on the international art scene. In 2010 it will be further consolidating its level of quality and its role as an unparalleled window on the finest research in the field of the visual arts, while also reinforcing its curatorial approach.

The Oval will host about 130 galleries, to be chosen by the Selection Committee from the most contemporary names and those of greatest interest in the international art market. The exhibitors will appear in the traditional sections: the MAIN SECTION, with the most representative galleries on the world art scene, PRESENT FUTURE, devoted to emerging artists and their galleries upon personal invitation by an international Committee of curators, and NEW ENTRIES, where the most interesting young galleries, which have been operating for less than five years and who are taking part in Artissima for the first time, will put the spotlight on the latest forms of creativity.

A brand-new feature of the 2010 Fair is BACK TO THE FUTURE, a unique section designed to bring to the attention of artworld professionals, collectors, and the general public those artists who have been overlooked in recent decades but whose work has become particularly significant today. Selected by a Scientific Committee, galleries will present solo exhibitions of historical works by an artist who was active in the 1960s and ‘70s. This is an opportunity to gain greater understanding of some of modernity’s innovators through artists who can properly dialogue with the latest experiments in contemporary art. The Scientific Committee consists of: Christine Macel, curator, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Jessica Morgan, Contemporary Art Curator, Tate Modern, London; Massimiliano Gioni, Director of Special Exhibitions, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, and Art Director of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan.

Taking inspiration from Pasolini, Poesia in forma di rosa (Poetry in the Form of a Rose) is the title of Artissima 17’s cultural programme, which revolves around visual artists who cross borders of other arts or disciplines such as architecture, design, literature, cinema, and dance. Artissima 17 will be investigating these migrations to find out what conditions might foster a greater integration of the arts.

The House of Contamination will be a specially designed architectural project inside the Oval, which will form the spatial and conceptual backdrop for the cultural programme. raumlaborberlin, a collective that works in the field of art and architecture, will be creating a life-size maquette for a building that can contain and facilitate the various processes of cross-fertilisation between the arts. Located inside the Fair, the large temporary structure will contain a number of spaces for each of the various areas of art being investigated: dance, cinema, literature, design, and education. These spaces will be interlocking and designed according to their destination and use. A ‘project within a project’, the House of Contamination will be conceived as a model for a future museum or cultural centre a prototype that will be experimented during the event. The sections in the programme include: All the Rest is Literature, a literary salon curated by Vincenzo Latronico; The Dancers, a dance programme curated by Anthony Huberman; Thinking through Cinema [Deep Red], a series of reinterpretations of the same cult movie, curated by Benjamin Cook and Mike Sperlinger; Super-Mayors, a series of interviews with mayors of large cities about their role of urban and cultural designers, curated by Joseph Grima and Pedro Reyes; Typography, a typographical and exhibition project that infiltrates the entire fair, by Dexter Sinister and Pickpocket Almanack, an imaginary travelling university organised by Joe del Pesco and Dominic Willsdon.

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