MADE IN MIND #18

ISSUE #18 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Francesca Pirillo

DIRETTORE RESPONSABILE Dario Carotenuto

MANAGING EDITOR Marika Marchese

PROJECT COORDINATOR Heidi Mancino

CONTAINERS SECTION Forme Uniche

PROOFREADER Sharon McMahon

CONTRIBUTORS Lisa Andreani Francesca Biagini Guy Marshall-Brown Erika Cammerata Irene Sofia Comi Gianluca Gramolazzi Ginevra Ludovici Marco Roberto Marelli Coral Nieto Garcia Giulia Perrucci Flavia Rovetta

CONTACT Information info@madeinmindmagazine.com Marketing adv@madeinmindmagazine.com

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PUBLISHED BY Aptalab | P ublisher for innovation and artistic research ISSN | 2532-1773 Registrazione della testata al Tribunale di Cosenza N°2/17 del 10.02.2017

COVER #18 Justin Sterling

SOCIALS madeInmindmagazine made_in_mind_magazine Madeinmind_mag All rights reserved. This production and its entire contents are protected by copyright. No use or reprint (including disclosure) may be made of all or any part of this publication in any manner or form whatsoever without the prior written consent of Made in Mind magazine. Views expressed in Made in Mind magazine do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editors or parent company.

CONTENTS

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CONTAINERS

INTERVIEW WITH ISIT.MAGAZINE Erika Cammerata

06 LARK MIRROR

| Gianluca Gramolazzi

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INTERVIEW WITH JUSTIN STERLING Ginevra Ludovici

PINK EMERALD START AND STOP Irene Sofia Comi

58 FOCUS GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES An incomplete abstract of shared discussion on a new artscape Francesca Biagini

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FAME was the last Edoardo Manzoni solo show at State Of, a new contemporary art space in Milan, hosted by Aretè Showroom, a large space, coordinated by the owner and promoter of the project Gianluca Grilanda, that explores the multiple languages of contemporary art, from painting to emerging experimental research, mirroring the study and training of the two project coordinators, Luca Zuccala and Manuela Nobile, to which is added a research on intersubjective and post-expression languages medials of the internal curator of the space Dario Moalli.

Containers is a section, curated by Forme Uniche, that deals with cultural “containers”: physical and virtual spaces, containers that welcome innovative projects, and that are told through the personalities that made them possible. For this issue Erika Cammerata has interviewed Federica Di Pietrantonio and Andrea Frosolini, the founders of ISIT.magazine: a fluid reality in which heterogeneous entities converge, deposits of the sacred fire of art and of that light bulb that once lit, illuminates the world.

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30 Pink Emerald start and stop is not only the title you can read here but it’s also one of the narrative texts I wrote for the exhibit

Justin Sterling (b. 1992) is a visual artist based in New York. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Sterling began his practice as a

Cuore Selvaggio, the solo show of the italian artist Matteo Montagna that tries to define the trucker’s character, underlining his thoughts and behaviours.

painter and sculptor. He later found interest in a broader range of mediums and received his Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts from Parsons.

58 Portafortuna is a public program presented in Florence by Toast Project Space that aims to bring together different independent Italian entities from the world of contemporary visual culture. In an open perspective, independent spaces can help decentralize the contemporary art world, letting new ideas emerge while developing a unique identity. Independent art spaces can also be a significant alternative point of view to understand the development of new contemporary art practices.

Edoardo Manzoni FAME, 2020 Exhibition view at State Of, Milan Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci

LARK MIRROR

EDOARDO MANZONI Gianluca Gramolazzi

FAME was the last Edoardo Manzoni solo show at State Of, a new contemporary art space in Milan, hosted by Aretè Showroom, a large space, coordinated by the owner and promoter of the project Gianluca Grilanda, that explores the multiple languages of contemporary art, from painting to emerging experimental research, mirroring the study and training of the two project coordinators, Luca Zuccala and Manuela Nobile, to which is added a research on intersubjective and post-expression languages medials of the internal curator of the space Dario Moalli.

The exhibition seems strictly related to hunting, but it’s just the starting point to develop a consideration/thought about tools, nature, human beings and animals. Born in the middle of Pianura Padana, the young artist takes from the countryside its characteristic of suspension in time, to analyse human beings and different temporalities.

Gianluca Gramolazzi: Hi Edoardo, your artworks are composed by different media. Is it related to your studies? Where does your research start from?

I usually work for a long time on a single theme but I try to experiment with the media I use to formalize my works. The Academy of Fine Arts has influenced this approach of experimentation, having to propose many projects for so many different subjects. The most natural thing for me, however, was to always start from my surroundings to produce. Therefore, my research came from the countryside, the rural reality stimulated my interest in the relationship between natural and artificial, human and animal.

G.G.: In a rural context, you opened an artistic residency called “La Fornace”. Could you tell me more about this?

The context you’re talking about, to take up the previous answer, is an old farmhouse where I grew up, where my family lives, a place dating back to the second half of the 19th century called “La Fornace”.

It's the warehouse where I draw on materials. At first I

didn't have many places to exhibit and document my work, so I started doing it there, in the very place where they were born. It was also a way to free myself from the obsession of the white cube dynamics. Today, the difference between a work of art and its documentation is becoming more and more fleeting.

From this was born: Residenza La Fornace, a photographic documentation project that involves several artists to dialogue with this farmhouse. We propose for each one to present a work to be installed in the context, I live it as an extension of my artistic practice. The project aims to treat the documentation of the works as the exhibition itself, for this reason the location remains secret to the public, presenting the photographic material only online. It’s a way to work with artists in different times and spaces. For this reason, we thought it was interesting to relate to the rural following a calendar close to the peasant one.

The first year was divided into four chapters, dedicated to the four seasons. This year instead will be dedicated to the four lunar phases, the period of work will follow the transition from one moon to another.

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G.G.: I notice a constant relationship between different times: past, present and future. How do you relate with time? Do you think the past is useful in understanding the present and future, or is it a constant evolution?

I always start from the past to create. My practice is based on a continuous recovery, in an attempt to reconnect fragments and narratives, collective and personal memories. The lack of a single direction of development towards which directs us changed our perception of space and time. We live a time that is no longer linear. It seems that the latest generations of artists have more and more to do with the rediscovery of past narratives, with the consultation and reworking of archives and materials in an attempt to give life to new forms of creativity in the present. The Internet has incredibly expanded the memory of the world, thanks to increasingly efficient media and methodologies related to data storage. However, reality seems to have lost what we could define as a precise imaginary of its own.

G.G.: Why do you integrate digital with analog?

My works are often made up of several passages and digital is often one of them. I usually take photographs to start designing, I work with them digitally, after which I try to bring the work back to a physicality. A particular example I would like to talk about is the series: September, where I retrieved some paintings from home represented by hunting scenes, I scanned them and from the digital

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Edoardo Manzoni FAME, 2020 Exhibition view at State Of, Milan Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci

file I created several works. In one in particular, I present these paintings on tablets installed on branches by using brackets. It's an installation that tries to suggest an atmosphere related to the countryside, the wood harvesting season and the one in which hunting begins (September). The association between natural and digital elements and the theme of hunting is intended to deliberately complicate the discussion, bringing it to more complex issues.

G.G.: Most of your artworks are ambiguous. What’s the purpose of it?

I like to think in terms of ambiguity, let the suspense, the logical and the irrational intertwine without offering an immediate response. I am interested in working with world objects, trying to detach them from the network of relationships that keep them within the obvious, to put them in crisis, to bring them to different keys of interpretation, to think about their potential of being a work of art.

In my last solo exhibition at State Of in Milan, I took up the theme of hunting again, thinking of an analogy between the figure of the artist and the hunter. Disseminated in the exhibition space, these works are presented as elements halfway between the furniture object and the animal trap and the sculpture. The aim is to trigger a tension between the object and the viewer, given by feelings of attraction, seduction and repulsion.

Edoardo Manzoni FAME, 2020 Exhibition view at State Of, Milan Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci

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Edoardo Manzoni FAME, 2020 Exhibition view at State Of, Milan Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci

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Edoardo Manzoni FAME, 2020 Exhibition view at State Of, Milan Courtesy the artist and State Of Photo Francesco Spallacci

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G.G.: In spite of the hunter or the wizard, you utilize violence and seduction making them unclear. In doing so, you make a clear political statement. I know you don’t like to be clear (in respect to your production), but could you tell me how you conceive violence and seduction?

If seduction is a form of persuasion using games, allusions, flattery and deception, I think that the artist, the hunter and the magician can be considered as professional seducers. Their ability is to disorient, enchant, divert the seduced from his present to take him with violence into a mysterious and unpredictable territory. The artist plays with reality, uses it like a magician to seduce and deceive our senses, just as the hunter draws his prey seducing it, attracting it towards his own trap with rather creative solutions, such as games of mirrors, calls that reproduce the sound of the prey. Through my artworks I try to blur the border between artwork, ornament and trap, bringing the viewer into a process in which he can feel like prey but at the same time predator.

G.G.: The objects you use are tools. Digital screens and traps are more and more integrated to human beings as prosthesis. How do you relate to this concept?

My interest in the history of the relationship between man and the material world has inevitably led me towards the concept of prosthesis. It is one of a story that starts with the homo habilis choppers and arrives to modern technologies. The objects that have always accompanied man's life are not only tools but also bearers of social

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Edoardo Manzoni Allodoliere, 2019 Courtesy the artist

Edoardo Manzoni Senza titolo (Fame), 2019 Courtesy the artist

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messages and energy, they are animist presences.

Today the presence of objects is reflected in our need for companionship, the technological object is constantly present in our lives in a process of mutual domestication.

Subject and object are no longer conceivable as separate units but as interdependent within a process of continuous interaction. In my latest pieces I take up the concept of prosthesis through the theme of traps. Even the dog, an important figure in my research, is the hunter's prosthesis, his alter-ego.

G.G.: What will your next exhibition be about?

The next exhibition I'm working on will be about bird calls.

It is assumed that the origins of music can be traced back to the human imitation of bird singing. Once again I was inspired by the relationship between hunter and animal and by seduction as a form of violence.

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Edoardo Manzoni Miraggio, 2019 Courtesy the artist

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Edoardo Manzoni Settembre, 2016 Courtesy the artist

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Edoardo Manzoni Settembre, 2016 Courtesy the artist

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INTERVIEW WITH ISIT.MAGAZINE

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THE WEDDING BETWEEN ART AND PUBLISHING

Erika Cammerata

CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE

ISIT.magazine is a fluid reality in which heterogeneous entities converge, deposits of the sacred fire of art and of that light bulb that once lit, illuminates the world. Outside the box, the brilliant artistic project of Federica Di Pietrantonio and Andrea Frosolini, born in September 2019, plays with the perception of classic editorial dimension and destroys the rigid canonical construction of the magazine, giving rise to a noun of short circuits, unexpected situation and paradoxes, that emanates magical sparks. In an evolutionary path of reworking and updating of tradition ISIT.magazine, in both his on-line/off-line versions, one on the net and the other on paper, becomes a revolutionary symbol and a place for meeting and sharing experiences where art is no longer just on display but it can be lived and experimented directly on the skin. The interaction and the interactivity, that determine a new type of use, are indispensable ingredients for the construction of a dynamic alternative of meaning and narration, that allows to get closer and enter in the cryptic issues of art, in its fruition and the information it conveys. It is precisely a more lucid and disenchanted look that ISIT invites the reader to operate, aimed at reigniting the mechanisms of critical thinking; questioning and reflecting with irony and lucidity, even surprising itself sometimes, are actions that must not to be forgotten or avoided, but rather encouraged because only in this way is it possible to know the systems and the networks that regulate the life, and the true change that can be implemented towards the non-technological progress, wise and with consciousness.

The following interview with the founders of ISIT.magazine was born from the intention to deepen and highlight both the dynamics and the problems implicit in the implementation of a creative process and the importance of questioning on issues about reality, art and life.

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Erica Cammerata: What is ISIT? How would you describe yourself (the project) in three words?

AFFDP: ISIT was born as an on-line/off-line platform, ISIT wants to be, for those who are hosted, a totally free and open space. The project is declined in various forms: magazine, website, socials and merchandising. The aspect we are mostly interested in is precisely not to be restrained into a single type of medium, but to re-evaluate the content and format each time. An aspect we are interested in is the language of popular platforms, that we both use and make fun of. We never take ourselves seriously, we joke around with seriousness.

E.C. How was ISIT.magazine born? And what motivated you to start this project that challenges the conventional rules of traditional publishing?

AFFDP: ISIT caught us at a time when we weren’t physically together, but separated between Belgium and Rome, and still completely unaware. We were on the phone having surreal conversations about what it could be, how and why. We didn’t actually have the intention of creating a magazine, we wanted to create a real and virtual space for the promotion and display of contemporary art, in and out of the spotlight. Especially for what it was out of the spotlight.

E.C. Three words?

AFFDP: Sun, heart and love.

E.C. What is/are the ISIT’s purpose/s?

AFFDP: We want our artists to interact with the

CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE ISIT2019#001 project_previews

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medium without any kind of restriction or constraint. As publishers we don’t want to contaminate any project with our vision, no more than what already happens naturally with the selection, the communication and the final realization of the product. The name ISIT comes from questioning and never defining yourself. Knowing how CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE

not to be.

E.C. What could I come across when reading ISIT. magazine?

AFFDP: Photographic projects, interviews, critical texts, photo novels, stories, legendary Pokémon, graphic projects, conversations, spam, advertising, images, true and/or untrue stories, gossip, rubrics, artists, Vasco Rossi, sushi and sashimi, posters, prohibited photos, queer stuff, emojis, essays, nostalgia, fabulousness, chills, emotions, romance, decay, irony, cynicism, fractals, acids, murders, betrayals, honor and respect, art, fresh fruit, brush script, consolas, cigarettes, hankies, bondage, illustrations and Lana Del Ray. E.C. What are the themes and subjects you favour when choosing contents?

AFFDP: Most of the contents of the magazine come to us from artists that we select through open calls. As soon as we started working on ISIT, we had the idea of making one. From our point of view it was a way to get a response from the audience about the concept and to find artists

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we wouldn’t have known otherwise. The only requirement for our open calls is a portfolio. The collaboration with us starts only after the actual selection, without a set topic.

This made the magazine a work in progress. Not having a particular request, we were looking for an answer from contemporary art’s audience towards contemporary art itself.

E.C. How is the magazine structured and how is the reading of the printed edition different from that available on the web?

AFFDP: The magazine is a collection of artist’s projects, photographers, illustrators, graphic designers, writers, curators, journalists, critics and tattoo artists. For the first issues we decided to insert the projects consecutively, the edition isn’t bound and the pages aren’t numbered. The idea is to be able to break the narrative, so that everyone can create their own. Nothing but 66% of a stock of Moldmade paper. The online and offline versions are one translation of the other. The contents are equally present in both, it is the system of fruition that changes. We didn’t want the online magazine to be just a transcription of the printed one, but to offer an experience related to its medium.

E.C. About the layout of the online page, what does the presence of a light-interruption which appears every time you click on a content represent?

CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE ISIT2019#001 ISIT.magazine 1st issue 2nd re-print COLORFUL edition MADE IN MIND | 25

CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE ISIT2019#001 ISIT.magazine 1st issue 2nd re-print COLORFUL edition SPECIAL_cover by STUDIO TONNATO 26 | MADE IN MIND

E.C. Speaking of duration, how often is the magazine published and how often do you add new content on both digital and physical formats?

AFFDP: The release of both formats happens simultaneously on an annual basis. We use the website for our definitive publication, not as a means of communication. This means the content remains unmodified throughout the entire year, during which we advertise them through different channels. An exception might be one of our last open calls, which winners customized the cover of ISIT2019#001, subsequently published both on paper and online.

E.C. What was the most difficult challenge you faced for the creation of ISIT.magazine?

AFFDP: We never thought of challenges as such, being accustomed to living the life of a young artist in the contemporary art system. We approached the magazine in the exact same way we approach a work of art, the

constant challenge is to keep the rhythm. Work it good.

E.C. Could you tell me a funny or unexpected episode in which you came across during the realization of the magazine’s concept?

AFFDP: We were in Ghent for the installation of one of our exhibitions, and on that occasion we made various studio visits and interviews. At 4 a.m. we were moshing hard at the Kinky Bar together with the first artist we interviewed (who didn’t know she broke a finger of one of us) Oopsy.

E.C. Why did you feel the need to change the rules and go beyond the known world of canonical publishing and try your hand at a project so far from tradition?

AFFDP: More than a need, it was a consequence. By relating to art daily as artists, it was natural for it not only to include the typical contents of a magazine (interviews, articles, etc…) but real artist's projects, which are designed specifically to live on the page and in particular on ISIT. In this way we see the magazine as a real space, akatranslation of a whitecube on paper. Somehow perhaps a conceptual reversal takes place, as a space that is not conventional for journalism at the same time becomes conventional for contemporary art. ISIT ISNT.

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CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE

AFFDP: We wanted the website not to offer just the classic experience of information scrolling. The website is designed with the same concept as the printed magazine, not following the regular flow of reading. We wanted to give users and readers the possibility to choose their own type of navigation and mess around with their heads a bit.

E.C. What do you hope/think is the answer or reaction of readers who follow the magazine?

AFFDP: We hope that readers appreciate ISIT’s identity, without necessarily creating superstructures to its unconventionality. ISIT is, after all, a contemporary art magazine, but we like that the audience comes from different cultural backgrounds. We think the answer is we are at the same time amused, but aware.

We flirt with the medium and the public. The library is open.

E.C. What are your long-term resolutions and where do you think the future will take you?

AFFDP: Our attitude is to always question ourselves as a CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE

magazine. ISIT could be defined as an ambitious and rational project. We are truly satisfied with its performance, considering it was born only in September 2019, we still have many projects in progress and in the pipeline. We are currently working on ISIT2020#002, new projects keep coming in also through the opencall#002 which will expire on May 1st. As of a few months ago we started to participate in various fairs, we have been to Yami-Ichi internet in Bologna and the Paper Market Fair in Rome, this has pushed us not only to work on the editorial production of the magazine but also present other productions, which can vary from the zine to the so-called pirate. The methodology of our work leads us not to think too much about the future, we take the opportunities that come to us and create new ones.

Be fab without any effort.

MIDORI Zine/coaster set by Andrea Frosolini

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CONTAINERS / CURATED BY FORME UNICHE Posterisit Poster by ISIT.magazine

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PINK EMERALD START AND STOP A TALE-DIALOGUE EXPERIENCE ABOUT CUORE SELVAGGIO, MATTEO MONTAGNA SOLO SHOW

Irene Sofia Comi

Pink Emerald start and stop is not only the title you can read here but it’s also one of the narrative texts I wrote for the exhibit Cuore Selvaggio, the solo show of the italian artist Matteo Montagna that tries to define the trucker’s character, underlining his thoughts and behaviours. I could have written a sort of typical post-exhibition interview, asking Matteo: “What do you think about the protagonist? Is he the same way you have imagined in your mind and when you thought of the exhibit? Which meaning do you think the exhibition underlines?”, and so on. But reflecting on the content of Made in Mind magazine, together we decided to do something different.

A question came up: How does the story evolve in a sort of post-writing mediation phase? Does the artist recognize himself in the narration? How much does the narration tell about the exhibit? For this reason we decided to split the story into different paragraphs from the official printed version, shaping the content again and again into different formats, following different mediation’s and writing goals.

We thought Pink Emerald start and stop not only as a text to be published in the magazine, but as a more powerful and question-generating instrument - trying to revert our positions, attribute meanings and points of views - and maybe, doing so, discovering something hidden between the lines of the story/exhibition.

As follows, you can read the fragmented curatorial-narrative text as an imaginary dialogue between the artist Matteo Montagna and the curator Irene Sofia Comi. At the end of the conversation you will find a description of the exhibition Cuore Selvaggio and the artist biography.

Irene Sofia Comi: The asphalt is wet, it's dark outside.

Tiredness does not help to focus on the continuous line of the highway and Tommaso wonders when the devil will finally reach his goal.

Matteo Montagna: I recently discovered a phenomenon called road hypnosis. It’s a state of mind in which a person driving a vehicle responds correctly and safely to external information that he finds on his way, but the conscious part of his brain is focused elsewhere so as not to remember how he/she arrived at his/her destination. I imagine the life of a truck driver like that, flowing endlessly and grinding miles.

ISC: There’s no need to think about it, kilometers are all the same: one more or less won’t make any difference, there’s no way in getting lost in complicated thoughts.

What the fuck does he care? It's useless.

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MM: Knowing the world of truck drivers, I don't think they voluntarily get lost in complicated thoughts, but in one way or another driving for so many kilometers is like falling into limbo, being in a state of hypnosis. I imagine the conscious and unconscious state having a nice little chat in the head of a truck driver.

ISC: Bitches, better eating or jerking off, that if you distract yourself while driving you also risk to end up in the fast lane. You’ve already imagined the scene in your mind ... Sbam! In an instant a beautiful accident and everything is gone. Last thing we need is that he loses his job. Immediately he sees the face of Giuseppina who, at the news of the dismissal, cries desperately, while heartening the little Matilde and Laura, protecting them under an abundant apron all packed with gravy. Oh, the girls. Tommaso hasn't

Matteo Montagna Cuore Selvaggio, 2019 Curated by Irene Sofia Comi Installation view at Current, Milan.

Courtesy the artist and Current

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Matteo Montagna Cuore Selvaggio, 2019 Curated by Irene Sofia Comi Installation view at Current, Milan Courtesy the artist and Current

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Matteo Montagna Cuore Selvaggio, 2019 Curated by Irene Sofia Comi Installation view at Current, Milan Courtesy the artist and Current

seen them for a while. On long journeys he always hopes that they are well, he sees their innocent smiles with the eyes of his heart. He misses them, his little girls.

MM: Yes, this is a classic image of the truck driver, but I would like to think for a moment about the word “jerk off”, and its thematic reflections. The sexual sphere is often associated with the world and culture of the truck driver.

Based on my experience of contact with this world, for many truck drivers it is not easy to live with detachment from home and one's affections. Many cheat on their

easy to be a truck driver. It really becomes a lifestyle, it's like being a bandit: you create another life when you spend time on the truck. These cabins are set up as if they were real miniature houses, there is a maniacal sense of order that leads them to be excellent housewives. Then small corners are recreated, dedicated to the family, to your partner, to the woman or man of your dreams.

These environments are real sacred chapels for them.

wives with company secretaries to create remote love stories, some give in to temptation or to the beauty of a single fuck with a whore. The LGBT community organizes sexual encounters via Facebook groups in the truck stops, and someone stops at the parking area at night, even just for a blowjob. They too have their temptations and they too, like every human being, are fragile. It is well known that masturbating has a relaxing effect on the nervous system in situations of stress, anxiety or other moments of mental distress, so why - in the exhibition frame - don't we take advantage to image to let it go, creating a parallel life to the ordinary one that we can find in our family nest. By the way, we are always looking for something that will eventually make us feel some more thrills.

you discover a real paradise, a bit like it happens with women. He treats his cabin like a treasure: he polishes “her”, perfumes “her” and sucks every speck of dust.

It’s a small secret world in which no one is allowed to enter, a sacred place with a holy card of Padre Pio on the dashboard.

MM: The concept of sacredness for a truck driver is very often important. It is a concept extended beyond the religious world. Venerating a woman of a calendar, her family, Padre Pio, is a bit like relying on fate by asking these figures to be protected or at least accompanied for the long journey that is about to be undertaken. A broader reference is to the world of navigation, where since ancient times the bow of the ship was decorated with figures of divinity, animals and later female figures with an apotropaic or obsequious concept. These small objects that we can find in a truck driver's cabin are part of his rituality and identification.

ISC: And in this moment he’s unable to get out of his head the image of the driveway he sees when he finally returns home, and parks his Iveco.

MM: I would have preferred you to say Scania! :) ISC: Being away from his family is not easy, yet Tommaso would never get off his truck. It is a lifestyle choice. He used to go crazy for trucks, since he was a kid.

MM: Everyone can do certain kinds of jobs, but it’s not

ISC: They are beautiful outside, but when you go inside

ISC: From the truck cabin, he willingly comes down only if there is to go to eat at the Sports Bar: the portions are abundant and the cuisine is good. Everyone knows: where the truck drivers stop, the food is always good.

MM: This is pure truth. In every self-respecting truck driver's restaurant, you go through the door and there are

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two sensations you feel. The affection of the mother who pampers you as if you were at home and the speed with which you are seated and served. As good mothers, the cooks and the staff have to make their son eat quickly so that he immediately returns to his duty as a driver.

continuously stimulated in an overflowing way by visual inputs, especially through new technologies. For children, however, the imagination is an instrument of knowledge, as in my research it is used in a reflective way towards the human being.

ISC: There are also calendars of naked women outside the bathroom. What would he do at Manuela Arcuri, above his cabin. He certainly wouldn't make her sleep, and the more he thinks about it, the more his blood throbs in his veins.

But his favorite Pirelli calendar has always been that one of Anna Falchi, who is in the bathroom’s anteroom, close to the towel.

MM: Imagination accompanies truck drivers that gladly wallow in it, who could blame them? In the exhibition I displayed digital drawings built starting from the concept of "calendar woman". These drawings show a playful and amusing woman, not the typical stereotypical woman on the calendar, but rather a woman told from a more childish and imaginative point of view. If my artistic research is inspired by the so-called popular culture, the figure of the woman on display in the drawings and sculptures is only one of the various facets that female representation assumes. Here the imagination is used as a childish exercise, of which the round and accentuated forms of the drawings and the sculptures are the result.

Imagination is an abstraction process indispensable to knowledge, necessary in our life, even Calvino in his Six Memos For the Next Millennium spoke of the concept of imagination starting from the lesson on the concept of visibility. In this Coronavirus imprisonment, the visual contents are almost obsessive, the atmosphere is dystopic. The imagination is fully under fire in this society,

ISC: He knows it. He and The Sports Bar guys are very simple people, they are truck drivers. They like women as they are made, all women, but blondes have more sex.

"Shit, one of these days I’ll tear out January and I'll place it on the window." He goes crazy with those women, and it is difficult to understand if it's the tits, the asses or the curves that form the trucks attract him more.

MM: Who doesn't like curves! The curves of a woman, the curves of a Porsche, the curves of an ass, the curves of the Monza racetrack, the curves of a simple arm, the curves that form a valley in the mountains. They are essential forms, an integral part of our daily lives.

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ISC: Pink Emerald is the name of his conveyance, and it’s what makes him prouder. He loves the nickname made of led, on the cabin: the written part is pink, the frame is fluo green. You should see with what pride he goes straight on the A4 highway, when he feels he is the master of his big truck.

MM: The nickname is another small but very important detail of a truck driver's rituality and identity. It is the possibility of creating an alter ego, of being able to live a parallel life, like a superhero. When you see on the opposite side of the roadway a truck arriving with its nickname it's as if in a flash you could build the image of that truck driver. It is as if the embellishment of the vehicle is the right outfit for a "superhero" name.

Matteo Montagna Cuore Selvaggio, 2019 Curated by Irene Sofia Comi Installation view at Current, Milan Courtesy the artist and Current

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Matteo Montagna Front of the poster-fanzine Cuore Selvaggio exhibition Courtesy the artist 38 | MADE IN MIND

Matteo Montagna Retro of the poster-fanzine Cuore Selvaggio exhibition Courtesy the artist MADE IN MIND | 39

ISC: He doesn't notice, but he cums a lot. It's that it all sounds crazy to him. He looks at the world from up there, and he feels like a King.

MM: I definitely love this phrase. It seems extracted from a text by Rino Gaetano and it could very well be a song dedicated - as Rino would say - to one of his popular characters, to the less wealthy classes of society. Being "the King" in life is sometimes necessary, both for what I have learned among truck drivers and for personal experience. Being "the King" is not to prevail over others, but to be proud and tenacious with your skills. Nobody gives anything.

MM: Ire, why have you decided to curate an exhibition dedicated to the world and to the trucker culture?

ISC: This final question surprised me: role switching!

Unlike you, I don’t know this field due to close relations with it or from my childhood, and this has been one of the aspects that motivated my curiosity; after the first

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gaze, being able to enter a different world view and understand its dynamics and its reference behaviors, with a different depth; raising the awareness of possible worlds often considered less important in certain cultural environments. My research is aimed at what we could call an economy of presence and to the reality that surrounds us, with the intent of making us more aware of our gestures and automatisms (visual, behavioral or cultural).

A second line of interest that prompted me to develop the project, and which correlates with the previous ones, is the visual pop culture derived from the world of truckers.

It is a sort of subculture on which there’s no real literature, which creates a short circuit between art and life, creativity and society. In the exhibition, these elements conveyed through the image of communication, a frame of the film Over the top, and the fanzine created in collaboration with the graphic designer Adriano Nicolosi, a sort of crossmapping of cultural, mainstream, commercial phenomena and symbolism.

Matteo Montagna Cuore Selvaggio, 2019, fanzine Curated by Irene Sofia Comi Installation view at Current, Milan Courtesy the artist and Current

Matteo Montagna’s solo show Cuore Selvaggio has been curated by Irene Sofia Comi and hosted by Current, non-profit space in Milan from October 25 to December 14 in 2019.

Taking a cue from the truckers’ world, the exhibition proposes a fertile territory to reflect on the nature and the culture of a “truck driver”. This theme is usually dealt with in a condescending or in a caricatural way. On the contrary, Montagna deepens it with a curious and respectful attitude, especially reflecting on the role of the cover girls, a typical presence in all of the trucking industry’s environments (motorways, garages, inns). The artist decides to treat seriously a universe that is commonly considered known and familiar, but whose complexity is often ignored, as its richness of meanings.

Artworks characterized by sexy aesthetics, bright colours and captivating shapes, propose a formal framework that refers to the clichés of a sort of machismo. But the cult of the feminine, which at first glance might appear vulgar and masculine, is reread by a boyish and malice-free gaze, as revealed by the curvaceous silhouettes, key stylistic elements of the project.

Entering the exhibit Cuore Selvaggio, the visitor participates in a micro-reality that turns out to be intimate and human, showing itself in its apparent, roaring simplicity. As if the cab of the truck was a sacred place, the truck driver’s life is made up of daily rituals that have become part of our common imagination. The artist proposes a personal reading of visual characteristics and linguistic codes, revealing a full-of-contrasts reality. Perhaps a little wild, but with a tender heart. The exhibition is accompanied by a fanzine that deals with the theme of the truckers’ visual culture, in a game of visual combinations between real elements, merchandising and contemporary drifts.

Matteo Montagna (Vimercate, 1992, lives and works in Milan) graduated in 2015 at NABA - Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti of Milan. Most recent solo and collective exhibitions include: Fruffrù, curated by Andrea Croce, BoCs Art a cura di Giacinto di Pietrantonio, Cosenza (2019); Overlap, curated by Andrea Croce and Michela Murialdo, Galleria Nazionale di Cosenza, Cosenza (2019); Cuore Selvaggio, solo show curated by Irene Sofia Comi, Current, Milan (2019); Cristallino, curated by Chiara Fusar Bassini and Federica Mutti, luogo_e, Bergamo (2019); Filling the absence, curated by Pinksummer Gallery, Genoa (2019); Brooom Broom, solo show curated by Sonnenstube and Morel, Lugano, CH (2017); Cali Gold Rush, curated by Marcello Maloberti and Lucie Fontaine, Milan (2014); One Remembers A Part Of What One Saw And Forgets The Rest, curated by Elvira Vannini, Careof, Milan (2013).

Matteo Montagna Cuore Selvaggio, 2019 Curated by Irene Sofia Comi Installation view at Current, Milan Courtesy the artist and Current

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INTERVIEW WITH JUSTIN STERLING

_______ Ginevra Ludovici

Justin Sterling (b. 1992) is a visual artist based in New York. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Sterling began his practice as a painter and sculptor. He later found interest in a broader range of mediums and received his Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts from Parsons. His chosen medium is the city, which he appropriates to create a poetic storytelling relationship with the urban and domestic, which in turn becomes a catalyst for social, political, and environmental discourse and activism. Sterling has shown work at BRIC in Brooklyn, NY; Foundation Francois Schneider in Wattwiller, France; CampoBase in Turin, Italy; Our Neon Foe Gallery in Sydney, Australia; MoMA PS1 in Queens, NY; 1980 Performance Space New York, New York; University of Rochester in Rochester, NY; and the Australian American Association (AAA) in New York, NY.

Ginevra Ludovici: Your medium is the city.

What is your relationship with the urban context and how do you incorporate it in your pieces?

Justin Sterling: My medium is the city, in other words, I find very specific objects around the city and bring them back to the studio to try to give them a new meaning. These objects often contain social and environmental symbols that tell stories about life to the viewers through their own experience. The object is intended both as a mirror to be reflected or a void to be filled. This is particularly interesting for me in the act of removal and reappropriation of objects from the city, because everyone already has such specific experiences with these objects.

When you remove a functional object from its original context, not only does it become useless, but its meaning is trivialized and can be shaped into something new. For instance, the language of firehydrants belongs to fire and water and their purpose is to fight fires. I maintain that these hydrants still fight fire, an emotional fire with a burning desire to

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keep the flickering flame going; or when the flames break the glass and engulf ceilings, hydrants cry a river. I hope I get people to really notice objects in the street using their intuitive imagination, so that the quotidian objects that I use are seen again in the wild imbued with layered metaphor.

Much of the work has a relationship to architecture or the built environment that surrounds me. With this methodology, I like to travel and scavenge to make work in new places, studying the complexities of crime or lack thereof, settler colonialism, U.S. hegemony, and gentrification along the way.

I make what I make based on quick necessity, every aesthetic decision is specific, logical and often practical. Necessity is an important word for my practice. How can a painting be made when you don’t go out and buy a canvas or paint? Most of what I pay for is construction materials and transportation. In fact, my studio costs are very low, otherwise, I probably would not be able to afford to

Studio portrait Courtesy of @thestudioarchive 2019

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be an artist at all. I simply imitate the language of what I see outside with authentically sourced materials found outside, this allows the objects to fluidly flow from my research into social and political theory. For instance, The Politics of Aesthetics by Jacques Rancière could be said to have been affirmation and prompt to how I think now.

G.L. As you were mentioning above, you mainly work with

installations, but you trained in painting for a long time. How has this language influenced your practice?

J.S. Yes, it’s true I am a traditionally trained painter. I still stand by something an old drawing teacher said when I was studying at the University of Urbino for a semester: "You never truly see something until you try to draw it”. I began painting really when I was an undergraduate student and not before, I was also training privately, teaching myself how to render from photographs while class was teaching me to depict from life and color theory. For a long time, I continued with mostly figurative painting, but studying in Italy for four months and seeing a great number of works in Europe’s most esteemed museums made me frustrated that I was working towards something thousands had done before me just as well or better. Being African American I also saw myself unrepresented in these contexts. This is not a knock to any black figurative painters out there, we need more representation in art, but I did not want to continue to associate myself with a sentimental and colonial style of artistic expression, I was determined to find a new path to originality. Basically, I did not want to paint figures, use the canvas, the frame, or any techniques in any of the ways predetermined by European tradition and apprenticeship throughout the centuries. In a

Justin Sterling Stuck, 2016 Found window, steel Courtesy the artist

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Justin Sterling Centurion, 2018 Found stones and rocks, found broom Courtesy the artist

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Justin Sterling Fear of Waves, 2018 Found Brooklyn windows, plastic, tape, sand, insulation foam, iPhone, caulking Courtesy the artist

Justin Sterling Blind leading the blind, 2019 Found Brooklyn window, blinds, mirror finish Courtesy the artist

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Justin Sterling On fire Installation, 2019 Found NYC hydrants, Manilla rope Courtesy the artist

Justin Sterling A burning desire Installation, 2019 Found NYC hydrants, Manilla rope Courtesy the artist

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Justin Sterling Broken Windows exhibition, 2019 The Olympia Project @ 87 Grand Brooklyn, NY Curated by Sophie Olympia Riese Courtesy the artist

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way, going to Italy was my first step in decolonizing my art practice. I didn’t know where it would lead, but I was determined to refuse tradition in favor of something more personally authentic. The language I ended up stumbling upon was the language of necessity. Since I did not want to use canvas, I had to think up other “canvases” that were not originally contextualized as such. This began by collecting street signs and painting on them, it turned into also collecting other objects from the built environment, like fire hydrants and windows. The realization of the historical, social, and metaphorical weight of windows has been a big epiphany for my practice.

G.L. The notion of the window has played a central role in the Western artistic tradition, taking on symbolic implications. For instance, in the De Pictura, Leon Battista Alberti invites to consider the frame of the painting as an open window through which the subject to be painted is seen. In your practice the materiality of the found object itself reveals certain socio-political dynamics and contexts. Did you have any specific reference in mind when you had the “epiphany of the window”?

J.S. Francis Bacon has always been one of my favorite painters, his use of the accident made his work alive and rampant with motifs that devastate the viewers expectations. In a world where practically nothing was original, Bacon showed the world that true accidents can be used to construct a new painting style. It began with me randomly finding windows on the street from

Justin Sterling No Running, 2015 Found sign, oil, acrylic, spray Courtesy the artist MADE IN MIND | 51

demolitions, replacements, and renovations around Brooklyn. Now when I come to the studio to make a new painting, the first thing I do is throw a rock at a window.

The accidental and uncontrollable way glass shatters is an act, which before the artist’s hand has entered the work already has all of these social and political implications as well as a new methodology for formal problems that can become aesthetic in their own rights. For me, a broken window conjures up all of these different associations to anarchy, displacement, and a dystopic future. The breaking of a window is an act of rebellion, a symbol of neglect, and a representation of a certain human perspective. I personally think my abstraction is actually realism, all of my aesthetic decisions are based on the necessity to fix something that is broken or neglected. A window is a membrane for information to pass through, the cleaner the glass the less you see the window, the more enthused you are at what you see, the less you see the problems right in front of your face. Black people are the window and the breaking of the window. In this spirit, I probably should declare my compositions with windows, as realism, the only separation between life and art here is your reflection in the pane of glass.

G.L. In relation to this, last June your solo show entitled Broken Windows was organized in New York. Could you tell me more about this project?

J.S. It was a solo exhibition I had in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (a gentrification hotspot), where I showed an installation Justin Sterling Scream at the base of the crucifixion, 2016 Found sign, dentists mold, tape, concrete Courtesy the artist

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Justin Sterling Do Not Enter, 2016 Found sign and image transfer Courtesy the artist MADE IN MIND | 53

Justin Sterling Designated Eating and Drinking Area, 2016 Found sign and image transfer Courtesy the artist 54 | MADE IN MIND

of city objects and broken windows. Alluding to the umbrella of broken windows policies employed by cops. Taught in criminology classes at universities, the broken windows theory was basically saying that fixing a small crime will fix the larger systemic crime that is happening all the time, thus creating a safer society for everyone to live in. This is the beginning of racial profiling, stop-and-frisk, NYC subway policing, the War on Drugs, police brutality, and the overall degradation of the neighborhood, all falls under the policing of Broken Windows.

Last year I was in Italy at an opportune time to see the exhibition City of Broken Windows at Castello di Rivoli by Hito Steyerl. I had just closed my exhibition a week prior, much of Hito’s wall text I regularly say in studio visits, but there were few aesthetics to her words and the conceptual motif of text on the glass of a window was repetitive, not even to the point of redundancy. Its location was also quite reductive. I think that a show like that was all the way in Rivoli speaking about policing issues in cities like Detroit, Chicago, and New York is kind of a missed opportunity for an engaging in productive conversation. Its beauty for me was the message, a direct salute to one of my own aesthetics. It was interesting to see first-hand the many ways art can be made on the subject/object of a broken window.

G.L. You are also a musician, specializing in the use of the trumpet, which you employ in a performative way to activate your pieces. What is your relationship with this instrument and how does that add up to your visual practice?

J.S. I have been playing trumpet since I was 7.

I went to a music magnet elementary school in Houston, Texas. I ended up losing interest in early high school and picked it up again when I moved to New York. I have been playing for about 11-12 years now.

I am a student of jazz and listen to hours and hours of it in the studio and around New York City. The instrument is an ancient one, from the stories of the walls of Jericho to the trumpets found inside the tomb of Tutankhamen, the sound of a trumpet has been embedded in culture for millennia. Recently its construction was mastered in brass, but not even Mozart was alive at the time of the modern trumpet. This European instrument came to the New World and was used in military marches and dance clubs, that juxtaposition eventually found its way into ragtime and jazz as we know it today.

The 20th century showed trumpet as an instrument that many black men have mastered with virtuosity and finesse musically. This is where I step into this history, the way I look at painting is the way I look at the trumpet, “If you’re gonna do this again, it has to be new”. Marches and dance are central to this modern history of the trumpet and I seek to explore the relationship between musical styles with trumpet, movement, storytelling, and dance. The way I move and what I play defines the grounds for this conversation with the audience. I improvise my body and horn at the same time, often creating new ideas for this medium mid-performance. With a trumpet I am at peace and feel as though I am channeling my ancestors, Louis Armstrong is my

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favorite trumpet player and I have a late family member who was a famous jazzman, Eric Dolphy. It is a way for me to shake up space and if the occasion arises, activate a visual installation. Performance art is its own abstract language.

How are you coping with the Covid-19 crisis and how does that reflect into your work?

The pandemic has affected artists heavily, I am no exception. However, one thing didn’t change that much, my studio practice. I am grateful to still have it, a space of solitude and creative meditation away from my home. Ironically, the reason I stopped painting proper oil-on-canvas portraits is the reason I’ve begun again, boredom. The pandemic has been a chance to get to know myself better and reflect on what lies ahead. A show at MoMA PS1 and a site-specific solo show have been postponed until further notice and a residency I was supposed to do in Spain in June may not happen anymore. On top of this, like many artists I haven’t received a check since March, rent is due, and waiting for government aid is something outside of my control.

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures, so I have decided to do what is in my power to make an income and opened a shop on my website straight from the studio.

Justin Sterling No More Water exhibition, 2019 Duo exhibition with artist Tahir Carl Karmali The Old Stone House Brooklyn, US Curated by Katherine Gressel and Kim Maier

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Justin Sterling Alone Performance, 2017 Courtesy the artist MADE IN MIND | 57

GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES AN INCOMPLETE ABSTRACT OF SHARED DISCUSSIONS ON A NEW ARTSCAPE

_______ Francesca Biagini

FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES

Portafortuna is a public program presented in Florence by Toast Project Space that aims to bring together different independent Italian entities from the world of contemporary visual culture. In an open perspective independent spaces can help decentralize the contemporary art world, letting new ideas emerge while developing a unique identity. Independent art spaces can also be a significant alternative point of view to understand the development of new contemporary art practices. During the talks at the Portafortuna program the dialogue led to different definitions of the independent entity itself as well as of the word "independent" being a controversial term that can be used or not, depending on the interpretation of this definition. Discussing a definition became a way to relate with a complex reality, without letting the definition define ourselves, choosing to not define but leveraging the commutative dialogue about it, being the best way to find subjectivity where needed.

Nothing should be accepted as fixed, permanent, or ‘given’—neither material conditions nor social forms.

(Xenofeminism, Helen Hester) The alternative spaces are no more motivated by filling a void as much as forming a self-shaped new culture in which a community (using the wider meaning of the word) can find different perspectives and new models.

Crossovers between institutions and independent spaces are very common due to the always flexible and heterogeneous nature in which independent spaces are created.

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Entering in the specificity of the meetings, the first talk: A space for research, production and experimentation: nonprofits and institutions has been a relevant hint for a further reflection on the topic. Linked to the non-conforming nature of the spaces – as touched upon in the introduction – Martina Aiazzi Mancini, moderator of this talk, started the conversation with a reflection. She quoted Leonardo Merlini, journalist and literary critic, about the future of contemporary art and the overcoming of all differences in artistic practices, in which he hopes a “tendency to blur”, for the future of the arts, to extend the contemporary field. Davide da Pieve, talking about DAS (Dispositivo Arti Sperimentali) in Bologna, referred to the multi disciplinarity and crossability of a space and pointed out the fact that DAS was created from a peculiar bond with a political institution. The DAS project was born from a call from the Bologna city council that financed a space with 14 associations in cohabitation but each one related to a different field.

“It is difficult to have a structured logic inside this 'coworking' space because the space is totally independent and self managed despite the collaboration with the townhall administration. In this process with different activities is kind of a natural necessity to be somewhat blurred” he said.

Lorenzo Balbi, artistic director of MamBo, referred to a 2018 MamBo exhibition titled That’s it where he selected Italian artists born after 1980.

One of the most interesting outcomes was a conversation between Lucrezia Calabro Visconti and Gabriele Tosi called A Compact Guide to Independent Art Production in Italy from 2008 to Today in which they try to categorize

FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES Y.O.isOnline Dream PORTAFORTUNA Exhibition 21-29.02.2020, Florence Curated by Toast Project Space Courtesy of Manifattura Tabacchi Photo Leonardo Morfini

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FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES

the different typologies of independent spaces managing to collect 7 categories: self funding spaces, proto galleries, private collection spaces, illegal occupations, results of calls, proto-institutions, commercial project spaces.

Balbi pointed out a difference in the possible aims between independent spaces and institutions: while independent spaces, as filters of experimental energies, can or not be linked to the territory, the public museum should be linked to it, being open to a reference public.

This difference opened a wide discussion based on different points of view.

Stefano Giuri of Toast Project Space for example explained how it was impossible not to create a bridge with the territory.

Manifattura Tabacchi (a former state-owned Tobacco products factory) was closed for many years so reopening such a vast space brought the community close to it. Being in a residential area people were curious to understand what was happening inside it.

The discussion was verging on how independent spaces have more lines of action open to them compared to institutions.

Simone Ciglia of The independent, MAXXI Roma, explained how the independent project coincides with a tendency of the institutions, since 2000 till now, to have a major interest in independent spaces. The artistic director of MAXXI strongly wanted this long term mapping project to work like a portal between the institution and independent spaces.

New development models are rising. Quoting Hou Hanrou's essay A third way "... many art-world professionals are

Anna Capolupo The card of the sun PORTAFORTUNA Exhibition 21-29.02.2020, Florence Curated by Toast Project Space Courtesy of Manifattura Tabacchi Photo Leonardo Morfini

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FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES Stefano Giuri Sono Palloso Politico e Statuario PORTAFORTUNA Exhibition 21-29.02.2020, Florence Curated by Toast Project Space Courtesy of Manifattura Tabacchi Photo Leonardo Morfini

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Gabriele Mauro Biennio PORTAFORTUNA Exhibition 21-29.02.2020, Florence Curated by Toast Project Space Courtesy of Manifattura Tabacchi Photo Leonardo Morfini

Shifting the subject but remaining in the same meaning container, the next talk, Economic sustainability perspectives within the independent universe, was held by a group of 7 people from different independent realities.

Anna Dormio (Kunstschau, Lecce), Francesca Finotti (Brace Brace, Milano), Paolo Mele (Ramdom, Gagliano del Capo), Rebecca Moccia (FEA Lisboa), Matteo Mottin (Treti Galaxie, Torino), Michele Bertolino (Il Colorificio, Milano), Giulio D’Ali Aula (INCURVA, Favignana). The moderator was curator Gabriele Tosi.

There is not a single economic model but different economic strategies that sometimes are also conceptually related to the

independent spaces projects. How these spaces employ their funds and if there is an ethic and aesthetic way to use money in these endeavours is the main question.

Michele Bertolino of Colorificio explained their situation: they are self funded, they pay the production and a fee for the artist. They wanted to create space-specific artworks along with the artists they select, following their curatorial interest.

This became the identity of the space itself.

Rebecca Moccia of Festival Fea, Lisbon, talked about the aim of the space: to link with existing spaces closing a gap. Being a festival it creates the opportunity to share a confrontation between artists and collaborative practices. They want to create a different view, highlight the existent independent network, put together the individual spaces of the territory.

The Incurva’s project, as described by Giulio d’Ali, instead is based on a residency in the mediterranean island of Favignana, the residency is free and the artists receive a fee but they don’t have to produce anything. The focus is to create relations more than a final work or organized project.

They prefer to create a link with the community and the territory. They never define the output of the residency.

Paolo Mele with Random in Gaglianò del capo, spoke about the territory that is geographically difficult and complex also in relation with the community and the institutions.

Anna Dormio of the 10 artists collective Kunstschau, Lecce, said how – after graduating from an academy – to invest in an independent space can be a way for an artist to self fund their identity and their research. Lecce was empty and the aim

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FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES

transitioning between the commercial and nonprofit sectors” how to build this new model? Hence the MAXXI-sponsored project as a map of independent spaces with an open call.

Paolo Mele of Random spoke, in another conversation, about the dichotomy between us/them, them as the other, the independent. based on this definition, independent spaces have different possibilities such as the production of new artworks, professional incubators, and outside horizons that give them more freedom and time without constraining them into providing a continuity.

The conclusion reveals that we can arrange this dichotomy as a: us/us.

To sum up: the political pressure is not about the subjects but about the structure so it is felt more by institutions and less by independent spaces.

FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES

was to bring a landmark for art students and people of the territory. The space is inside a garage in a suburban area of the city.

Francesca Finotti talked about Bracebrace in Milan. It was a private studio, then became public and an exhibition space.

They produce solo exhibitions of different artists.

it is an important practice to raise funds that bring an acknowledgment with them, to make an independent project sustainable can be a way to promote them.

Paolo Mele's answer pinpointed different processes: the fact that a project is recognized by an institution doesn’t mean that it is also recognized by the community, it's a

Tretiegalaxie by Matteo Mottin with Ramona Ponzini has a low-impact aesthetic format so it is also an anti-system outfit. They want to create projects that should exist in their opinion. For example they created an exhibition for just one spectator that was randomly extracted, working on the elitism of the art system. Of course there is no direct sustainability based on non functionality of art. The aim is to have a dialogue with the past and future.

matter of responsibility in front of the community if you are administering public money. Independent projects are not economically sustainable by definition. They are like “positive waste”. They self fund everything. They try to create values and contents.

On the same economic model topic the next question was if being recognized by the art system could be favorable or detrimental.

Incurva – not having any production purpose – is not economically self sufficient, but the professionalization is not linked to the economic aspect. It is an act of love.

Rebecca Moccia explained how in Fea there is an economic sustainability thanks to a partnership with an advisor that takes care of fundraising and collaborations with the art management course at University of Lisbon. Not having funds can be a benefit for the spontaneous output and the minor amount of work required, but at the same time

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Professionalization is another topic: the shared conclusion was that you don't need to be acknowledged by institutions and the art world to be a professional, also: the fact that you are not economically sustainable doesn’t mean that you are not a professional.

Mele remarked: “… we are not an independent space and I don’t believe in the definition of independent space. An independent space exists where there is no question about sustainability and you can do what you want. But when you work trying to raise funds through calls you are not independent but inter-independent because your work is strongly linked to other people’s work. The terminology of independent space is usually created by the institutions to create a dichotomy or an opposition.

The outside economic model about sustainability is always a

FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES Vinicio Venturi Tutti a Berlino PORTAFORTUNA Exhibition 21-29.02.2020, Florence Curated by Toast Project Space Courtesy of Manifattura Tabacchi Photo Leonardo Morfini

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Lori Lako LAST(S) PORTAFORTUNA Exhibition 21-29.02.2020, Florence Curated by Toast Project Space Courtesy of Manifattura Tabacchi Photo Leonardo Morfini

FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES Lori Lako LAST(S) PORTAFORTUNA Exhibition 21-29.02.2020, Florence Curated by Toast Project Space Courtesy of Manifattura Tabacchi Photo Leonardo Morfini

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Matteo Coluccia PORTAFORTUNA Exhibition 21-29.02.2020, Florence Curated by Toast Project Space Courtesy of Manifattura Tabacchi Photo Leonardo Morfini

The last question was: is it important to communicate to the public the economic model beneath the work? To understand the meaning of the work?

Do you question about how much work there is for a piece of art? Also aesthetically?

We can let the readers think about it. An open question on a personal perception about art and the economic world.

The next conversation: Independent publishing as a space for critical and artistic production was led by Marco Marelli from Forme Uniche.

These realities and projects not only produce books or book reviews but they are also a different way for artists to express themselves and express cultural production in the editorial field.

Pietro Gaglianò talking about Scripta festival, a book festival held once a year in Florence, explained how the festival's aim is total autonomy, not independence. “Independence – Gaglianò continues – is not a practicable concept and also not desirable. […] I am dependent from society, I observe it changing and I am an outcome and a visible

epiphany of it. We work in culture so we depend on society, the public, need for artists and art, but we are autonomous so we isolate a possibility in which all the decisions are made on a scale of values that we define and find important, outside the trending field and the commercial market. This autonomy is something that we strongly defend."

Dafne Boggeri of Sprint, Independent Publishers and Artists' Books Salon, in Milan, born in 2013 with Sara Serighelli, created a format that can open the independent publishing space to the artistic space and attract artists to Milan who act in a relation with the public, to bring energy and change to the territory.

Valerio Mannucci of Nero illustrated how Nero was a magazine and then became a publishing house with people from different fields, a platform where different formats are explored. Inside Nero magazine there is NOT, a format that is a new way to imagine publishing inside Nero, dealing especially with contemporary radical thinking. It is mainly a translation project aimed to reframe different thinkers and philosophers inside the italian cultural circuit.

Nero caters to a transnational circuit while NOT is intended to work in the Italian context.

Translation of underground books to spread radical thinking in Italy was also the reason to create Kabul, as Dario Ali said. Perceiving a void inside the cultural Italian landscape

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social model and not a commercial one. Being independent from commercial logic is to experiment and have research practices that have no output in the commercial field. It is easier to finance this research through social institutions.”

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PORTAFORTUNA Open Talks Mappature storiche e istanze del momento in un confronto generazionale 22.02.2020, Manifattura Tabacchi Organized by Stefano Giuri, Martina Aiazzi Mancini, Alessandra Fredianelli From the left: Serena Schioppa (Castro, Rome), Virginia Zanetti (Estuario Project Space, Prato), Mirko Rizzi (Marsèlleria, Milan), Luigi Presicce (Brown Project Space, Milan), Francesca Manni (moderator) Photo Leonardo Morfini

FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES

about some themes and some authors, Kabul was born in 2016 and it now has a composite format.

There is an online magazine with unedited and free downloads, translating texts but also producing essays and articles in between an academic magazine and a popularizing magazine. Kabul is also a non profit association that has many partnerships. Having collaborations with different realities adds something to each experience to find a way in a complex editorial landscape.

An independent publishing house is another branch of Kabul. It publishes books never before translated in Italian.

Taking forward the matter about independent publishing the discussion verged on how words are bricks that constitute our culture, how to understand what is important or not in the widespread creativity galaxy that we are living in.

Dealing with a creative explosion it is not always so simple.

Pietro Gaglianò explained that the subtitle of Scripta Festival is art by words, to underline that they deal with books without pictures, opening a possibility of understanding against every indoctrination practice even if selecting and choosing are implicit. The festival is held inside a bookstore/vegetarian restaurant to open it to a more informal public. Gaglianò's target is to present independent publishing houses in an open dialogic dimension where not only the point of view of the author

PORTAFORTUNA Open Talks Prospettive di sostenibilità economica nell’universo indipendente 21.02.2020, Manifattura Tabacchi Organized by Stefano Giuri, Martina Aiazzi Mancini, Alessandra Fredianelli From the left: Anna Dormio (Kunstchau, Lecce), Rebecca Moccia (FEA, Lisbona), Michele Bertolino (Il Colorificio, Milan), Matteo Mottin (Treti Galaxie, Turin), Paolo Mele (Ramdom, Gagliano del Capo), Francesca Finotti (BraceBrace, Milan), Giulio D’Alì Aula (Incurva, Favignana), Gabriele Tosi (moderator), Stefano Giuri (Toast Project Space) Photo Leonardo Morfini

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FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES PORTAFORTUNA Open Talks Uno spazio per la ricerca, la produzione e la sperimentazione: non-profit e istituzioni 22.02.2020, Manifattura Tabacchi Organized by da Stefano Giuri, Martina Aiazzi Mancini, Alessandra Fredianelli Stefano Giuri (Toast Project Space, Firenze) e Martina Aiazzi Mancini (moderator) Photo Leonardo Morfini

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PORTAFORTUNA Open Talks Uno spazio per la ricerca, la produzione e la sperimentazione: non-profit e istituzioni 22.02.2020, Manifattura Tabacchi - Organizzato da Stefano Giuri, Martina Aiazzi Mancini, Alessandra Fredianelli Lorenzo Balbi (MAMbo, Bologna) Photo Leonardo Morfini

FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES PORTAFORTUNA Open Talks L’editoria indipendente come spazio di produzione critica e artistica 23.02.2020, Manifattura Tabacchi Organized by Stefano Giuri, Martina Aiazzi Mancini, Alessandra Fredianelli From the left: Pietro Gaglianò (Scripta Festival, Florence), Valerio Mannucci (Nero, Rome), Dafne Boggeri (SPRINT, Milan), Dario Giovanni Alì (Kabul Magazine, Turin) Photo Leonardo Morfini

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PORTAFORTUNA Open Talks L’editoria indipendente come spazio di produzione critica e artistica 23.02.2020, Manifattura Tabacchi Organized by Stefano Giuri, Martina Aiazzi Mancini, Alessandra Fredianelli From the left: Pietro Gaglianò (Scripta Festival, Florence), Valerio Mannucci (Nero, Rome), Dafne Boggeri (SPRINT, Milan), Dario Giovanni Alì (Kabul Magazine, Turin), Marco Roberto Marelli (moderator) Photo Leonardo Morfini

On the other side Valerio Mannucci explained that Nero is a cult reality and that there is a controversy about the fragmentation of different layers in this wide creativity. It is a fight against all the channels and formats that make up this overwhelming communication and cultural panorama.

Their choice is to have an antiformat like antimatter, a condition of existence; it is the grey zone in the cultural panorama that they are trying to find.

Kabul magazine does a lot of collaborations and meetings with different realities and artists that organize workshops about many topics to create definitions, to create a glossary. It is a collective writing workshop finding terminologies for different topics. It is a research platform for people of the sector.

Having talked about the publishing realities in abstract it is interesting to notice that print is a space

FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES

is proposed as legit but also the objection from that point of view. The purpose is to open a dialogue with the public proposing a horizontal pedagogic action: the creation of an open space for thought and the possibility to understand and learn with each individual's tools, not with imposed or preimposed ones.

and that we can relate also with books as objects inside a material culture perspective.

Amelia Jones said that everything is mediated.

Everytime we approach something, we mediate it with our intellectual tools, Pietro Gaglianò pointed out. Dafne Boggieri's approach – being a collector – is a possessive one, fascinated by the power of books as a space, by the relationship between architecture and graphic layout of the book and its flexibility. Not underestimating the power that this object, on its own, has as a vehicle of communication.

Printing and publishing is the process of the limit but not a limit in itself.

The visual aspect of a book can also be a recognizable strategy.

Kabul projects a strong and specific image in translating texts of artists. It differentiates itself from the image projected by big publishing houses.

The end of the discussion brought each participant to find a word or a definition linked to the subjects approached during the talk.

Dafne Boggeri used the word cultural biodiversity, as the hope for many voices for a wide view.

Bibliodiversity.

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Pietro Gagliano evidenced a dyad between understood and understandable used in a conversation between Lenin and Clara Zetkin in which she asked Lenin what was his idea of art. He answered that art must be understood by people. In Russian there were two translations of this quote, using both understood and understandable. The meanings are very different though.

Understood means that people must mature and find the conditions to understand art while understandable means that the art itself must be simplified to be comprehensible to as many people as possible, thus becoming propaganda.

The generational comparison between historical mapping and contemporary demands of independent spaces was the theme moderated by Francesca Manni.

Some differences immediately emerged between still active spaces (Estuario and Castro) and spaces that are no longer active (Brown or Marselleria) temporarily on a hiatus. Brown and Marselleria stood as the first examples of independent spaces born in the Milanese area and were paradigmatic for many subsequent experiences.

Both Luigi Presicce (Brown) and Mirko Rizzi (Marselleria) highlighted the total freedom of action and experimentation that characterized their exhibition events. Estuario and Castro have a tighter programmatic approach related to their different aims. Castro, as Serena Schioppa described, was born as a space for artist studies, there is a call for selection, a talk program, meetings with citizens and with other realities in the Roman territory. Virginia Zanetti

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presented Estuario as more centered on multidisciplinarity and didactics on the territory, developing workshops with art students and public schools “Estuario’s objective is to share with the public-at-large a contemporary art visual alphabet. Its objective is to bring the largest number of people towards contemporary art (which has often an elitist and selected public) and contemporary art to the largest number of people".

The most relevant point that emerged during the talk was precisely the desire to sensitize that audience, both the habitually interested, and the occasional. On this aspect a small debate was born to understand how both typologies of independent spaces, one more officially directed to involve a different public and one more tout court, are at the end specular in reaching a wide public forging new connections.

One question was focused on the economic part which is mainly DIY but with some differences. The availability of Marselleria allowed Mirko a freedom of action, even only for high-impact installations, which Brown and Estuario have not had and still do not have. Castro was born from private funding, on their website there is a section totally dedicated to donations, and also for this reason it has a very specific program. Furthermore, the evolutionary awareness that Luigi and Mirko have matured is something that Estuario and Castro are still working on, being young realities. The possibility of evolving their status from artistrun space to gallery, is a question that both Mirko and

The Portafortuna exhibition is held in different places, starting from Manifattura Tabacchi and involving the neighborhood, bringing the works inside public and private spaces, from the local bar to the hairdresser.

Independent spaces being the topic of the Portafortuna program, it is a striking move to transform an independent space – defined as such – where exhibitions usually take place into a “dependent” space in which the dialogical exchange with the territory defines the exhibition itself.

The holistic system of the exhibitions moves around the Piazza Puccini area. The area is dominated by the Manifattura Tabacchi built in 1940 and the recreational club for workers that is now the Puccini Theatre. The area is historically linked to the activity of the Manifattura Tabacchi. The works (and the process of making them) entered the daily life of the people living in the area inspiring debate.

In the Puccini bar the work of Jacopo Buono recreates, in

PORTAFORTUNA Open Talks L’editoria indipendente come spazio di produzione critica e artistica 23.02.2020, Manifattura Tabacchi Organized by Stefano Giuri, Martina Aiazzi Mancini, Alessandra Fredianelli Marco Roberto Marelli (moderator) Photo Leonardo Morfini

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Luigi have asked themselves. In particular Marselleria, after 10 years of activity, had a precisely structured staff, but the transformation into a commercial gallery would have led to a change in the foundations of the space. To sum up, the need to have a working space, in which to exhibit and sensitize citizens to emerging contemporary art are the common points that emerged among all. Despite this there are many small differences given above all by the intrinsic nature of the four realities: territory, public, economy and also temporality.

FOCUS / GLOCAL SCENARIO ON INDEPENDENT ART SPACES

a little corridor behind the slot-machines, a T.E. (A).Z (title of the installation) Temporary Enjoy (Automated) Zone in which the theory of Hakim Bey’s TAZ is overlapped and short circuited being situated in the recreative context of distraction versus the alienation of work. As a TAZ is a liberated area in which someone can be free and new collective ways can be explored, the TEAZ can ironically celebrate (the work is made with helium balloons) the autonomy of a brief moment in a workday.

The Card of the Sun by Anna Capolupo is placed in the main window of a barber shop. The installation is a non-experience made of time and space but it is also a process in which cleaning the window of the old barber shop gathered together the people that live nearby to observe that act as an unexpressed ritual. Inside the Italian bowling hall there are two paintings by Matteo Coluccia, Puttanificio 1 and Puttanificio 2 displaced as two targets of spectacular and provocative gestures emphasized by fluo colours. In The Circolo Arci Mario Bencini is a so-called, literally translating, House of People (community centers, a kind of social association that originated from the European experiences at the end of the 19th Century: a proletarian dream of a place for the working class’ culture and leisure) there is You do what you can a silicone sculpture with the shape of a bee that represents the most operative animal, but in this case is nailed to the wall, like a crucifix, that with its immobility refuses to live the productive mechanism and automatism finding a new self expression while in the same room old people are usually loudly playing cards. In a room under the Circolo Gabriele Mauro's work, Biennio, is composed by two unopened identical calendars of the same year with the same price and with the same image of La Velata by Raphael. The installation is a work in progress and also a monument of a still time that we can imagine without experiencing it. Lungo l’Affrico by Marco Pace is a vision of the anthropocene in which a weeping

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willow cedar cries for a river that is now buried under a street. Going back through the street that leads to the Manifattura Tabacchi we can find Lori Lako's work, Last(s), two photographs of an empty pool and a room with a dried Christmas tree. Last stays for the last, an ending story in which places wait to be filled (maybe with just presence) but at the same time the waiting becomes the meaning of the end of something. On the other side of the Manifattura we can see the work by Jacopo Buono and Giacomo Nasti: Dream-y.o. is online, representing a hope sign, like the Yoko Ono one on a billboard, in a rhetorical way, contemporizing the message like a Whatsapp chat and radicalizing it as an unanswered message. On top of the main entrance of the Manifattura you can see Stefano Giuri's, I am difficult, political and statuesque, it is a self portrait of the artist on the balcony of the monumental entrance, ironically and provocatively placed as a human sized portrait in the process of a political discourse like a dictator or a saint surrounded by neon tubes. Entering in the structure there is Vinicio Venturi's, everyone to Berlin, an inclined conveyor belt hooked to a motion sensor with a pair of sneakers rolling on it, a tentative of evasion and a mirage at the same time.

Finally inside the independent space Toast project space there is the exhibition of Super summer extra pomeriggiosuper cavalli (super horses) that reflects on the political implications of the parade, and the rhetoric underlining it, displaying as many horses as possible, in different media, supports and shapes that people sent after a call from Toast project space.

“The public sphere is a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed”.

(Jurgen Habermas)