Press release – ABOUTART – LA SCELTA DEL PRESENTE

Start: March 12, 2012 - 6.30 pm

March 12 – 18, 2012

Monopoli Gallery presents: an exhibition on a survey of art experiences in Taranto during the rise of Italsider (’60-’70) conducted by Gianluca Marinelli. The exhibition marks the beginning of the project ABOUTART, promoted by Monopoli Gallery with the aim of analysing nowadays art languages.

LA SCELTA DEL PRESENTE exhibition marks the beginning of the project ABOUTART which main purpose is to analyse nowadays art development. If art is the reflection of its time, today it should be the reflection of uncertainty. The exhibitions and meetings planned for this project will take place in the brief periods which go from the ending of an exhibition up to the organization of the following one. We are aware of this kind of choice and we think that is necessary for this kind of analysis. A new magazine, “Ph”, conceived to analyse contemporary art from different points of view, will be talking about the topics taken into account.

We will be thinking about our precarious state by analysing an experience from the past. Thanks to materials coming from private archives, Gianluca Marinelli had the opportunity to study what the artists from Puglia did during the period of the rise of Italsider in Taranto. Italsider is the biggest iron and steel factory in Europe. The artists talked, in many ways, about the contradictions of the capitalistic development system: urban decay, consumerism, social break up, problems concerning the environment. They are the reasons why nowadays there is no harmony and we are affected by a sense of confusion.

In this exhibition the historical reconstruction becomes art. The exhibition is named La scelta del presente from an essay written in 1970 by Franco Sossi (La scelta del presente, Firenze, ed. Techne). In this essay Franco Sossi, who is from Taranto, thinks about how art reacts to the social and economic changes and what the artists do.

Marinelli creates a homey environment where it is history speaking even through audio recording of some artists such as Nicola Andreace, Sandro Greco and Pietro Guida.

The exhibition includes a video about Antonio De Franchis’ art experience. De Franchis worked at Italsider in Taranto. The video was presented at the 54° Biennale di Venezia, within Museo dell’arte contemporanea italiana in esilio by Cesare Pietroiusti.

Artist: Gianluca Marinelli
Art curator: Andrea Fiore.