YOUNG ITALIANS
New York, Italian Cultural Institute-Cold Spring, Magazzino Italian Art
September 25 – November 1, 2018
Exhibition views: © Alexa Hoyer. Courtesy Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, Cold Spring (NY)
Jointly organized and promoted by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and MagazzinoItalian Art
Curated by Ilaria Bernardi
The group show was conceived as a 50th anniversary tribute to the show of the same name, curated by Alan Solomon, which took place at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the Jewish Museum in New York in 1968, featuring the work of twelve young Italian artists, under the age of 40.
Similarly, this sort of new edition of that historical exhibition features twelve Italian artists, under the age of 40, all of whom were either born, grew up in, or currently work in Italy. Also included are Italian artists who have moved to New York, in order to examine the extent to which Italian culture is present in their work and the interplay between exact location and displacement.
Although the purpose of the new edition of Young Italians is to promote younger Italian contemporary artists abroad, the group show also attempts to identify two common tendencies in their work. Therefore, in the exhibition the artists are divided into two groups: on the one hand, a group of six artists who can be named I(n)-Arte [I(n)-Art] since they look at Italian art history, inheriting from it the manual skill understood to be the reflection and subjectivization of techniques, materials, and sources of the image; on the other hand, the group of six artists who can be named I(n)-Realtà [I(n)-Reality] in that they are inspired by Italy’s since look at Italy’s contemporary social, political, environmental, and cultural reality, inheriting from it the desire to find alternatives to its most cogent problems.
The letter “I” that the names of two group have in common goes back to the theme that appears to underlie the works by young Italian artists: Italy as Image, that is, its cultural or social context as the origin of creation. In fact, the common theme underlying the work of these young Italian artists today seems to be the legacy issue: they feel orphaned, since they are abandoned by their Fathers, and therefore feel the need for a subjective re-appropriation of one’s cultural horizon.
Exhibited artists in I(n)-Arte: Davide Balliano, Antonio Fiorentino, Luca Monterastelli, Ornaghi&Prestinari, Eugenia Vanni, Serena Vestrucci.
Exhibited artists in I(n)-Realtà: Danilo Correale, Irene Dionisio, Silvia Giambrone, Domenico Antonio Mancini, Elena Mazzi, Gian Maria Tosatti.