Verona and its Shakespearean legacy offers a kind of fascinating atmosphere dating back to Romeo and Juliet times. Some sense of “theater play” is on also at ArtVerona OFF exhibits as part of the ArtVerona | Art Project Fair, dedicated to modern and contemporary art, which stands out for its inclination for experimentation and dialogue among different languages, as though artworks and artists were on the stage.
Iconoclash. Il conflitto delle immagini (Iconoclash. The conflict of images), for instance, deals with the process of creating images that is evolving rapidly , while Il mio corpo nel tempo (My body in time) deals with the relationship between time passing and art. Both of them are part of ArtVerona OFF.
Iconoclash focus is on the countless images produced per second (photos, drawings, digital images, emoticons) thanks to the new technologies. It’s like picture thinking, the Italian writer Italo Calvino theorized in his Lezioni Americane, became our standard form of “reading the world”. At the same time our society reveals a twofold trend with some iconoclastic aptitudes due, for instance, to cultural issues as well as to material circumstances (i.e. the wear of time or the impossibility of preserving every single image).
Image digitalization and dematerialization bring us to question lifetime and durability of pictures. Alongside the destruction of images caused by social upheavals, sometimes their deletion is due to more sneaky reasons, such as earthquakes and by the continuous flow of pictures creation that results in their devaluation. The photographers move on the borderline between love for the images and a desire to delete them, with cut up or fragmented pictures, wiped out ones or eroded surfaces. Among the artists: Nazgol Ansarinia, Jiri Kolar, Mimmo Jodice, Gianni Politi, Jesse Ash, Davide Trabucco, Ryan Gander, Paolo Gioli, Mandla Reuter. Curators of the exhibit, produced in collaboration with Museo di Castelvecchio and Consorzio Collezionisti delle Pianure, are Antonio Grulli, Diego Bergamaschi and Marco Martini (signing projects as Eddy Merckx).
The artists deal with time passing by documenting their own bodies in Il Mio Corpo nel Tempo exhibit (curated by Adriana Polveroni and Patrizia Nuzzo). Urs Lüthi, Luigi Ontani and Roman Opalka think of themselves as “documents” unveiling the truth. In the present time, when the trend is to cover up the flow of time, their research took on a quite interesting critical remark.
The Off exhibits go on until January as a continuity of the 13th edition of ArtVerona, that hosted a selection of 135 galleries. Many of them specialize in photography, both vintage and modern. Under the art direction of Adriana Polveroni in partnership with the Italian Association of Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries, the event focused on enhancing the Italian art system.
Indeed, the hub of the edition was Viaggio in Italia #BacktoItaly (Journey to Italy). The Grand Tour aimed to underscore the attraction Italy always had on artists, showcasing the foreign realities in the Country and Italian galleries abroad that have ‘re-turned’ to Italy, interpreting a new take on the ‘journey’ concept. As of 2017, the mission of ArtVerona to promote independent entities included the new project Free Stage, involving several young artists who are not yet backed by a gallery, but rather presented by artists from the previous generation. Collecting still remained a central feature of the event, for example with Primo Amore, a platform intended to direct public and younger collectors towards quality though affordable works.
Paola Sammartano
Paola Sammartano is a journalist specialized in arts and photography based in Milan, Italy.
ArtVerona OFF / Iconoclash
October 13, 2017 to January 7, 2018
Museo di Castelvecchio
Corso Castelvecchio 2
Il Mio Corpo nel Tempo
Galleria d’Arte Moderna A. Forti – Palazzo della Ragione
Cortile Mercato Vecchio, Verona
October 13, 2017 to January 28, 2018
37121 Verona
Italy
