STEREO-TYPE
New frontiers of Italian MusicPalazzo Lucarini Contemporary is investigating again the changing concept of national identity. After twoexhibitions, in the year of celebration for the 150th anniversary of Italy’s Unification, the most innovative museum of Umbria is back with a new project and exports in UK its creativity. Keyword: stereotype.
Public presentation: Friday December 2nd, public works studio, London
On the wake of celebrations dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Italy’s Unification and coherent with its own policy of cultural research, Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary is back again with a stimulus for reflection on the mutability of the concept of identity. This time out of its own space and context. The occasion is offered by public works, an art and architecture London based company, which Matilde Martinetti (Curator at Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary) is currently collaborating with. On occasion of the next Friday Session (a series of informal meetings and presentations at public works studio), Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary will present a selection of songs specifically chosen for the event. The compilation, called Stereo-Type, analyses the concept of stereotype starting from a fundamental element of Italian culture: the melodic music of the classical period (starting about at the end of 19th century). The current political and economical crisis, together with a strong characterized imagination, leave themselves easily open for the most rhetorical things our “poor country” can offer. Though in the frame of obvious things Stereo-Types disappoints expectations in order to urge a redefinition of identity and, along with it, the same image of the Bel Paese starting from a simple song.
This compilation is the last project of a series on the concept of identity and it follows the idea started with d altezza d’uomo. Ipotesi sul concetto di identità nazionale (March-May 2011), Aria di casa. Le foto di Maurizio Dogana e i video di Z.ONE Cultural Crossing (October 2011) e Camouflage. Mario Consiglio, Yonel Hidalgo Perez (ongoing until January). It is a one-year-long and well-structured path based on the exploration of migrating and changing identities forming a new social category, a propulsive element of a new kind of culture which necessarily makes contamination and change a brand new identity principle.
At a perfunctory glance the fact of talking about songs could seem quite extravagant as far as Palazzo ucarini is concerned as it deals with contemporary art. But those same songs represent a privileged instrument allowing us to understand people’s identity, more than any other institutional events with their useless celebration, flowery rhetoric and ineluctable retrospective. The strategy adopted by those old authors (the iteration of not noble subjects, of petty-bourgeois atmosphere and elementary, but amplified, emotions) contributed to the moulding of our national character better than the pride of the Risorgimento. They were even more efficacious than the temporary post-war cohesion or the disown of terrorism.
The common features of the songs above, settling in our imagination, defined a standard, a cliché corresponding to the reality of facts. Therefore, from this point of view, “Italian culture” is rooted in a series of stereotypes which, maybe unconsciously, in the end we have accepted even if, and above all, we haven’t meant to.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Title: Stereo-Type. New Frontiers of Italian Music
Object: compilation
A project by: Maurizio Coccia
Curated by: Maurizio Coccia, Matilde Martinetti
On occasion of: Friday Session n. 48
Organized by: public works
Date: Friday December 2 2011
Location: public works studio, 1-5 Vyner Street, E2 9DG London, UK
Hours: from 7p.m.
NOTES
Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary (Trevi, Perugia, I)
Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary is a Centre for Contemporary Art founded with the intent of making and preading art and, in a broader sense, the culture of contemporary art in its several manifestations. The Commune of Trevi gave Cultural Association Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary the spaces of the homonymous building. The Association was founded in January 2007 after the dissolution of Cultural Association Trevi Flash Art Museum and has a role as observatory and promotion of contemporary art. The association deals with the usual exhibition activities and moreover, thanks to the work of a specialized and skilled staff, it offers a series of complementary events: conferences, didactic activities and workshops, both for adults and students attending all kinds of school.
public works (London, UK)
public works is an art and architecture practice working within and towards public space. ll public works projects address the question how the public realm is shaped by its various users and how existing dynamics can inform further proposals. Their focus is the production and extension of a particular public space through participation and collaborations. Projects span across different scales and address the relation between the informal and formal aspects of a site. Their work produces social, architectural and discursive spaces. Outputs include socio-spatial and physical structures, public events and publications. public works is a London based non-for-profit company. Current members are Kathrin Böhm, Torange Khonsari, Andreas Lang and Polly Brannan who work with an extended network of project related collaborators.
More info: www.publicworksgroup.net
