Uscita Pistoia


<

Exhibition on “spazio chiuso”

curated by Stefano Coletto

Antonio Cataldo, Lia Cecchin, Riccardo Giacconi, Andrea Kvas,
Giulio Squillacciotti, Elisa Strinna, Mario Tomè

opening: Saturday October 31st 2009
via Modenese 165, Pistoia, h. 17.30

until December 19th, 2009 , only by appointment


Press Release

> Italiano

Following Hyo June Lee’s “Suicidal Victory” exhibition, this second edition of the "Spazio chiuso. Progetto per uno spazio espositivo in questione" (Closed Space: Program for an Exhibition Space in Question), curated by Stefano Coletto for the new opening of Uscita Pistoia, aims at forming a bridge between places of art education and the planning aspect of a new site dedicated to showing contemporary art.

As in the case of Hyo June Lee and the NABA, the personal courses of the artists involved in this second exhibition have crossed renowned institutions, such as the Faculty of Design and Art and the Accademia di Belle Arti of Venice. The artists have also participated in activities organized by the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation.

Once again, the artists gauge their work within the conceptual field produced by the paradox of the space, reopened on October 31st, while instigating reflections and interpretations on the meaning of its “closure”, as well as “closure” according to multiple interpretations of the concept of “space”. The project is characterized by its operating as a gravitational field that places a workshop experience, based on a space dedicated to contemporary art, together with a conceptual dimension that functions as an apparatus for the artists involved.

Half of the project appears on the Web in Desktop, a section involving some of the artists - Antonio Cataldo, Giulio Squillacciotti, Elisa Strinna and Mario Tomè – working with a planning methodology and a work-in-progress approach on the thematic field which characterizes the project. The Desktop section proposes itself in the form of work files that continue to grow and develop over the course of the months following the opening of the exhibition. Through these months, the projects will be presented at the exhibition space.

Brief History

In 2003, Giuseppe Alleruzzo decided to share his then studio/living space on via Modenese 165 - in the outskirts of Pistoia - with other artist friends, creating moments of reflection and confrontation between themselves and the public. In 2006, that form exhausted the spontaneous nature which had fueled it over the course of 4 exciting editions, involving the participation of artists such as Mario Airò, Marco Bagnoli, Gianni Caravaggio, Loris Cecchini, Flavio Favelli, Phillip Lai, Christiane Löhr, Eva Marisaldi, Sabrina Mezzaqui, Maurizio Nannucci, Alfredo Pirri, Remo Salvadori, Vedovamazzei, Luca Vitone, Shizuka Yokomizo, and many others. The entire program may be viewed on the site http://www.uscitapistoia.it/.
Shortly after, the gallery SpazioA was born, almost as a physical need on the part of Alleruzzo, with the aim of connecting Uscita Pistoia to a professional possibility to be lived with the same energy as the preceding experience. For several years the space on via Modenese was a reference point, both for a series of important contemporary art exhibitions and for activities addressing younger generations. As a further step, in September 2008, the SpazioA gallery moved to the historic centre of Pistoia, in via Amati 13. Since then, the more peripheral site has been dedicated to interventions by and residencies for young artists who have just finished or are in the process of completing their educational training in the most qualified public and private institutions, both Italian and foreign. It is therefore an occasion both for a cultural reflection and for the construction of a bridge between the academic world and that of exhibition and curatorial practice

Lia Cecchin, Over and over again, performance, 2009
“ An eyelash falling on my face is enough for me to realize that by blowing on it and making a wish I’ll be driven to start my course over, yet again”.
Through this gesture, Lia Cecchin gives the space a sense; a secret hermetically enclosed within poetics, let fall and forever lost.

Riccardo Giacconi, In thin air, sound installation, 2009
In In thin air, sound presents a variable intensity: a circular flow, oscillating from silence to loudness. The period requires 12 minutes to be completed and then repeats in a loop. Within the exhibition space, sound seems to come form the walls.The rooms vibrate internally, closed within their structure and their autonomy from the outside. The walls are the tympanum for a sound which, through a gradual and continuous distinction between figure and background, is composed as language, sign and message, yet also as white noise, insignificant stimulus, and nature.

Andrea Kvas, Untitled, 2009
Through this work, Kvas interprets the rooms of Uscita Pistoia, deconstructing the nature of the exhibition space according to a series of interventions in which the coexisting works and objects are brought to the same level. Losing their artistic quality, they are lead back to their primary nature and thus emptied of any artificial structure of sense.