20 octobre 2012 - 13 janvier 2013
Les associations libres, exhibition
Carte blanche from la maison rouge to the Dena Foundation

A project by the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art
Curators: Chiara Parisi and Nicola Setari
Artistic coordination: Francesca di Nardo
Exhibition design: Chirstian Frosi and Diego Perrone



Alongside this showing of the Setari collection, la maison rouge has given the Dena Foundation carte blanche to present young Italian artists through a selection of reviews and structures led by independent artists. They play a vital role in keeping Italy's contemporary art scene thriving, after recent years of neglect by public institutions.

Within a space inside la maison rouge, surrounded by the exhibition of the Setari collection, the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art asked Chiara Parisi and Nicola Setari to propose a presentation of the
Italian art scene today. Italy's contemporary art scene is rebellious and unpredictable. Attitudes are remarkable, powerful, but also astonishingly radical and poetic.
A "national" approach could not convey its full diversity, hence Le associazioni libere takes a different angle. It invites independent, artist-led structures and reviews to show this diversity and alternative projects happening alongside or concomitant to Italian public and private initiatives, and to present their idea of what art can be in a non-institutional context.
With artistic coordination by Francesca di Nardo, this project shows one aspect of Italian contemporary creation, seen through some of the alternative vectors set up over recent years, and through multiple and
ambitious editorial slants: as many representations of curatorial and artistic practices spread throughout the country.
All these initiatives - with their various ideological and political frameworks, often pursuing very different strategies to survive, some digital, some in print - stand out as a possible heritage left to society by Arte
Povera, a movement that reawakened our sensibility by expanding the artistic sphere and practices.
Lucie Fontaine in Milan, Cripta 747 which started out in Turin, and Cherimus in Sardinia are just three of these artist-run alternative venues. Among the reviews, Mousse and Kaleidoscope in Milan, Cura, Nero and Artribune in Rome are examples of the intellectual and editorial outpouring behind this renewal. Thanks to an international connection and unfailing solidarity, Italian artists worldwide who identify with these reviews and structures are demonstrating amazing vitality.
Established in 2001 by Giuliana Carusi Setari, from its offices in Paris and New York, the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art promotes and develops synergy for Italian artists. Alongside the presentation of the Setari collection, the project at la maison rouge celebrates the inventiveness and creativity with which Italian art expresses its response to all forms of crisis, whether political, ideological, intellectual or indeed artistic.
Curated in close consultation with the structures, reviews and in particular artists Diego Perrone and Christian Frosi, who based their design for the exhibition on their first-hand experience of these systems,
the project shows recent works and special commissions.
 

Informations
La maison rouge - fondation antoine de galbert
10 boulevard de la Bastille, Paris 12ème
Open Wednesday to Sunday, 11 am to 7 pm
late nights Thursday until 9pm
closed December 25th, January 1st and May 1st

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