18 Jun 2011

Radical Intention presents Milano Radicale

MILANO RADICALE
Curated By Radical Intention + Caterina Iaquinta

Milano Radicale is a project curated by Radical Intention in collaboration with Caterina Iaquinta that will start in June 2011 and will end with an exhibition in 2012. The project intends to start a critical reflection on the concept of radicalism and its possible contextualization in contemporary art in Milan.

The first step consists in four lectures held by four protagonists of a particular artistic production that took place between 1973 and 1979 in Milan (Fernando De Filippi, Paolo Rosa, Giovanni Rubino, Roberto Taroni). The lecturers will analyze visual and compositional strategies in reference to photography, to using slogans and to advertisement, to murals and to some aspects of the moving image. The lectures will be followed by a group of selected young artists, who will enhance a theoretical and practical process during the second phase of the project at Corniolo Art Platform (August 2011) by participating in a laboratory in which they will experiment and discuss the aftermath of the lectures. The project will end with a group show between the end 2011 and the beginning of 2012.

The assumption of the project is that the idea of radicalism is to be understood as an oppositional behavior and thus as antagonism. During the 1970's many artistic processes could be defined as 'radical' mainly because they were born in reaction to a power considered as a 'enemy' that they intended to overthrow through their actions and because a good number of artists could not refrain from discussing their approach to social and political emergencies, thus creating discontinuity towards uniformed processes of art. Indeed, given some artistic events that have taken place in Milan between 1973 and 1979, while promoting art as a cultural action and aiming at re-discussing and reconstructing the visual codes and space, it is as if over those years the level of protest and political engagement was not disconnected from that of the artistic and cultural production. This process indicated brought the city of Milan to be an example of 'radicalism' in the wider European context.

Today, when the artistic action is sometimes alien to the political, art does not pursue a 'targeted' antagonism, but a radical 'feeling' is still present and radicalism has changed its forms of action.

'Milano Radicale' wants to question which places and which ways, and in what kind of artistic practice a radical nature can still be expressed, and what are the forms in which this issue occurs. Through a reference to the cultural climate of the seventies in Milan, the intent of the project is to contribute to an 'update' of the concept of radicalism.

# 1: Lectures
8 | 15 | 22 | 29 June 2011 | 7 pm
Medionauta | Via Confalonieri 2 | Milan

Through the involvement of some of the key figures in the artistic and cultural scene in Milan such as Fernando De Filippi, Paolo Rosa, Giovanni Rubino, and Roberto Taroni, the Milano Radicale project enhances a series of conferences in which the speakers will be invited to comment, analyze and discuss together with artists selected for the residency and the audience, some visual works they produced or collaborated on during the seventies. The intent here is to re-examine methods and strategies that often occurred in artistic practices during that time, in order to reflect on the image, used here as a pretext to explore the legacy of those years in artistic and cultural production today.

> Paul Rosa – June 8, at 7 pm
Paolo Rosa along with Tullio Brunone, Giovanni Columbu, Claudio Guenzani and Ettore Pasculli, was a member of the Laboratorio di Comunicazione Militante, a group that was active from 1975 to 1979, and in 1976 they occupied the Church of San Carpoforo in Milan, transforming it into a self-organized cultural center called la Fabbrica di Comunicazione Militante. Thanks to the exhibition 'Strategia d'informazione' ' (Rotonda della Besana, Milan, 1976, Casa del Mantegna, Mantova, 1977), the Laboratory would call into question the power of mass media images, subjecting them to a real process of 'deconstruction': framing, lighting, the use of screening, staging the subjects were all recombined actions that revealed the fallacy of visual quality. The video, Facce di festa, filmed in 1980 – a reflection on a lost youth in search for new references – marked the dissolution of the group and the birth of Studio Azzurro, a group founded in 1982 by Paolo Rosa, Fabio Cirifino and Leonardo Sangiorgi.

> Roberto Taroni – June 15, at 7 pm
Roberto Taroni founded Sixto Notes in 1977. In 1981 he created and organized, 'Sonorità Prospettiche' an exhibition on the relationship between sound and environment. His works have been presented in international events like the Venice Biennale, the 'International Week of Performance' of Bologna, the 'Symposium Internationale d'Art Performance' in Lyon, 'Forum '80' in Middelburg, 'Anni '90' in Bologna, 'Italian Art 1960-1982' in London and in private galleries and in international museums such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Koelnischer Kunstverein in Cologne, the Folkwang Museum in Essen, the ELAC of Lyon, Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome and the PAC in Milan. He is a protagonist of International Performance and Video Art of the late '70s, he built his artistic exhibitions, installations, environments, performances and videos, which constantly created a relation between Visual Arts and other artistic disciplines.

> Fernando De Filippi – June 22, at 7 pm
Fernando De Filippi held the course of special graphic techniques between 1973 and 1980 at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Milan); the students formed a collective and helped the challenge of the seventies movement by conceiving most of the icons and printing the slogans used in demonstrations throughout those years in Milan. He has participated in numerous exhibitions, including 'Testuale. Le parole e le immagini' (Milan, 1979), during which he placed banners and posters that represented extracts from Writings on Art by Marx and other writings by De Filippi himself, throughout the city. He also participated in the Venice Biennale in 1970, 1972, 1976, 1978 and 1980 and in the Quadrennial in Rome in 1965, 1972 and 1986. It was also Dean of the Accademia di Brera.

> Giovanni Rubino – June 29, at 7 pm
Giovanni Rubino was a catalyst figure amongst those from the Collettivo Autonomo Pittori di Porta Ticinese. He organized numerous exhibitions and events in public spaces, including the 'Mostra incessante per il Cile' (Milan, 1973-76): the show started after the coup of Pinochet and represented the greatest moment of participation to the Collettivo di Porta Ticinese and saw a succession of several interventions, mainly in Gigliola Rovasino's Galleria di Porta Ticinese, until its final act at the Rotonda della Besana in 1977. He also organized the exhibition / conference 'Un po' poetico, un po' politico' (Milan, Italy / Pavia, 1979), which by referring specifically to the 'poetic' sphere, it reflected on the theme of political defeat and the figure of the 'artist-hero' that will mark the art in the Eighties. In 1976 he participated in the Italian section of the Venice Biennale dedicated to 'Ambiente come sociale', curated by Enrico Crispolti.

Caterina Iaquinta lives and works in Milan ad she is PhD candidate in Philosophy, Art and Theatre at the Cattolica University of Milan, with a research project aimed to investigate the theoretical, critical and historical prospects of performative practices, in particular relation with social action and experimental theater, with a focus on the Italian scene from 1975 to 1980. In these past years she has addressed the relationship between artistic production, feminism and the social context in the seventies. She is currently collaborating with the Department of Visual Arts at NABA – Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti di Milano. As a curator, she developed exhibition projects including Dissertare/Disertare (2006) and La Forza dei Legami Deboli (2008), developed with the involvement of a network of curators and Italian no profit realities.