Italian Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2019

Italian Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2019

Italian Pavilion
At the 58th International Art Exhibition of
La Biennale di Venezia

11 may – 24 november 2019
curated by Milovan Farronato
Enrico David, Chiara Fumai, Liliana Moro

Neither Nor: The challenge to the Labyrinth is the title of the exhibition, curated by Milovan Farronato, for the Italian Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in which three Italian artists are taking part, presenting completely new works along with ones from the past: Enrico David (Ancona, 1966), Chiara Fumai (Rome, 1978 – Bari, 2017) and Liliana Moro (Milan, 1961).

The subtitle of the project alludes to “La sfida al labirinto” (“The Challenge tothe Labyrinth”) a seminal essay written by Italo Calvino in 1962 that has been the inspiration for Neither Nor. In this text the author proposes a cultural work open to all possible languages and that feels itself co-responsible in the construction of a world which, having lost its traditional points of reference, no longer asks to be merely represented. To visualize the intricate forms of contemporary reality, Calvino turns to the vivid metaphor of the labyrinth: an apparent maze of lines and tendencies that is in reality constructed on the basis of strict rules.

Interpreting this line of thought in an artistic key, Neither Nor: The challenge to the Labyrinth already uses the rhetorical figure of the anastrophe to disorientate – brings up to date an artistic project of ‘challenge to the labyrinth’ that takes Calvino’s lesson on board by staging an exhibition whose layout is not linear and cannot be reduced to a set of tidy and predictable trajectories. The lines of approach and interpretations offered to visitors are multiple and copious, so that the exhibition gives them the chance to play an active role in determining the route they will take and thereby confronts them with the result of their own choices, accepting doubt and uncertainty as inescapable parts of knowledge.

28 March 2019
Artissima
1 July 2020
M77 Gallery | Kendell Geers. OrnAmenTumEtKriMen