Painting the Present

PAINTING THE PRESENT Dunhuang, Silk Road International Cultural Expo 20 September – 7 October, 2016

The exhibition of contemporary art organised by IGAV – the Garuzzo Institute for the Visual Arts – selected by the Chinese government to represent Italy in the high-profile festival

IGAV - Istituto Garuzzo per le Arti Visive (the Garuzzo Institute for the Visual Arts) has been invited by the Chinese Ministry of Culture to represent Italy with the exhibition entitled “Painting the Present” at the first edition of the Silk Road International Cultural Expo (SRICE), which will be inaugurated in Dunhuang on 20 and 21 September, 2016, and will continue until 7 October.

Works of art by 32 pre-eminent artists (16 Italian and 16 Chinese) will be exhibited, as part of the exchanges envisaged by a four-year agreement signed in 2015 by IGAV and CAEG – the China Arts and Entertainment Group. In implementation of that agreement, the exhibition was presented in September 2015 at the Certosa di San Giacomo on the Italian island of Capri, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture and Tourism (Naples Museum Hub) and the City of Capri, in the context of the programme called “Contemporary Visions at the Certosa”, and in August 2016 at the Peninsula Art Museum in the city of Weihai (situated on the eastern coast of China, in the gulf of Shandong), meeting in both cases with tremendous success.

The exhibition project showcases an image of painting that extends from traditional forms to state-of-the-art technologies. The internationally renowned Chinese curator Fang Zhenning is at the helm – the same consummate professional who put together the backdrop for the China Pavilion at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012.

As the curator of the Italian section, Alessandro Demma, puts it: “Taking as its starting point the long, shared visual history of Italy and China, the exhibition aims to analyse the salient issues and questions of contemporary life and the possible tools that can be deployed to de-codify it within the pictorial space, which is interpreted as both a physical and a mental place. This is one of the most important and complex themes of art today.”

The Expo, which will be staged annually, was developed by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the government of the province of Gansu (population: 23 million) and other leading Chinese public- and private-sector organisations, with a view to “promoting highlevel cultural exchanges between nations and regions along the Silk Road, in the spirit of the ancient caravan route of peace and co-operation, openness and integration, mutual understanding and mutual benefit”.

Representatives of all the countries touched by the ancient Silk Road have been invited: Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, France and Italy.

New pavilions and spaces have been designed specifically for the Expo, and hotels, roads, a railway and an airport have either been built or renovated. The Expo includes an international section and a national section (with exhibitions organised by the 13 Chinese provinces through which the Silk Road passed). Italy will have a particularly important role, since it was an end point of the ancient route. According to preliminary information issued by the organisers, 40 foreign delegations, 20 Chinese delegations and 2000 invitees have confirmed their attendance at the inauguration, along with 300 accredited journalists.

For the caravans arriving from the east, Dunhuang – located more than 2000 km to the west of Beijing – represented the first oasis in Chinese territory on the trail of the ancient road, and it was from there that the Great Wall began. Today, it is a hotspot for international tourism.

IGAV, a non-profit body based in Turin, largely funded by contributions from its partners with the support of public- and private-sector organisations, has been operating since 2005 to raise the profile of Italian artists around the world and to promote cultural exchanges between nations: it has thus far organised more than 50 exhibitions in 12 different countries; the exhibition in Dunhuang is the 17th IGAV event to concern China.

Rosalba Garuzzo, president of IGAV, stated: “We are proud of the appreciation shown to us by our Chinese partners, and overjoyed for the Italian artists whose works are being exhibited, much to the delight of an exceptionally heterogeneous international audience.

We will continue to work to promote our artists, pursuing our mission, which we feel has great cultural and social value, with a steadfast commitment, despite the limited resources available”.

CAEG, controlled by the Chinese Ministries of Finance and Culture, is the leading Chinese agency for the staging of exhibitions both in China and overseas and for the promotion of international cultural tourism.

Italian artists whose work appears in the exhibition: Andrea Aquilanti; Franko B; Fabrizio Cotognini; Alberto Di Fabio; Massimiliano Galliani; Daniele Galliano; Paolo Gonzato; Corinna Gosmaro; Silvia Hell; Paolo Leonardo; Mariangela Levita; Pierpaolo Lista; Marco Neri; Pierluigi Pusole; Alessandro Sarra; Giancarlo Scagnolari.

Chinese artists whose work appears in the exhibition: Cang Xin; Chen Haoyang; Chen Wenling; Han Yansong; He Wenjue; Huang Ying; Li Di; Li Lei; Liu Jianfeng; Meng Luding; Tao Na & Cong Xiao; Wang Yun; Zhang Xinyu; Zhang Yanzi; Zhang Zhaohui; Zhou Yangming.

Under the patronage of: the Italian Ministry of Culture & Tourism; the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation; the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China; the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Italy; Campania Region; the Metropolitan City of Naples; the City of Capri; the Municipality of Anacapri; GAI – the Association for the Circuit of Young Italian Artists; the Confucius Institute at the “Orientale” University of Naples.

Partner: Flyren Technical sponsors: Art Home International Fine Arts Logistics Co.Ltd Silk Road International Cultural Expo Dunhuang, International Exhibition Center No. 2713 Wenbodong Road, Dunhuang For information: IGAV – Istituto Garuzzo per le Arti visive Tel. +39 011 8124456 info@igav-art.org www.igav-art.org Press Office IGAV, Elettra Pr Mauro Perego, Tel. +39 393 8188596; mauro.perego@elettrapr.it