Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche and Fondazione Imago Mundi

presents

TREVISO CONTEMPORANEA

Three exhibitions in three different locations in the city of Treviso

Treviso

From 5 February to 29 May 2022

Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche and Fondazione Imago Mundi present “TREVISO CONTEMPORANEA”, a new platform for action in the contemporary sphere that sees the two foundations united under the banner of a shared project, for an investigation into the present time that combines past and future in an international perspective. “Treviso Contemporanea” comes to life with a series of three exhibitions that will open their doors to the public on Saturday, 5 February 2022, and run until Sunday, 29 May 2022. The result of close collaboration between the two institutions, the exhibitions are hosted in three different locations in the heart of the city: Ca’ Scarpa, San Teonisto church and the Gallerie delle Prigioni. Each exhibition has its own vision and style, but falls under the banner of a common theme, the very current need to “map the world” in historical and contemporary perception, from the traditional forms of cartographic reading of the earth’s surface to the artistic transcription of the relationship between experience and representation, through to the work of artists and communities from the indigenous Australian art world. “Treviso Contemporanea” opens with a focus on the theme of maps as tools that help us locate ourselves in physical space and interpret the increasingly complex, global and constantly connected scenario in which we move today.

“Mind the Map!”, organised by the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, “Terra Incognita” and “Temporary Atlas”, organised by the Fondazione Imago Mundi, are the titles of a shared itinerary inviting us to reflect on the image of the world, experiencing the map of the city itself as we move from one location to another. Developing a shared itinerary, the project brings together the activities of the two foundations and explores their specificities to create a flexible network – which is open also to other local cultural realities – that becomes an observatory on art forms and research themes from different disciplines and cultures. The project is sponsored by the Veneto Region and the City of Treviso.

THE EXHIBITIONS
Mind the Map! Drawing the world from the eleventh to the twenty-first century curated by Massimo Rossi and set up at Ca’ Scarpa, considers globes of all ages and origins as expressions of social conventions that have imposed boundaries, decreed orientation to the south, north or east, reified abstract concepts of power and dominion, vehemently asserted a place in the world or conveyed intense emotions of fragility and beauty. From the mappae mundi found in thirteenth-century prayer books, to the extraordinary cartographic constructions of the world of ocean trade, and from contemporary geographical carpets to Google’s map of the world, the exhibition offers a reflection on the dynamics of constructing the image of the world with which we deal on a daily basis. “Mind the Map!” illustrates the bold human intellectual attempt to draw the earth’s surface and to see it all together in a single graphic representation. It invites us to pay close attention to the map, to all maps, which are often mistakenly used as substitutes for reality in an unconcerned and unthinking manner. Paying attention to them means entering worlds with their autonomous and multi-faceted complexity.

The collection of indigenous Australian art, part of the Luciano Benetton Collection, has initiated
a research process aimed at investigating the artistic, cultural and social lives of the artists and communities that make up the indigenous art scene in Australia. The exhibition “Terra Incognita, Inclusiveness is a good way” curated by D. Harding at the San Teonisto church, offers visitors a large installation of over two hundred painted canvases, creating a vibrant landscape of colours, to be observed from above and from a certain distance, as befits sacred spaces and places that are approached with respect. A landscape made up of different experiences and expressions, which excludes no-one, but neither does it deny the possibility of self-exclusion. The collection, like something seen through a telescope, makes visible to the Italian public a portion of the beauty and significance of the cultural landscape experienced by indigenous communities across Australia. And by inviting people also to explore their own social and political territories, it makes them realise that there is still much to be known.

If one understands the link between reality and representation, as it exists within a work of art, it becomes clear that what is perceived as immediate is actually the relationship between experience and the means of depiction. The fourteen artists of Temporary atlas. Mapping the Self in the Art of Today, curated by Alfredo Cramerotti and realised in the Prison Galleries, focus their senses in on themselves, developing the traditional meaning of the map along unconventional paths – those of the subconscious, of the body, of thoughts, of memories that interact in each of us – and presenting an alternative and complementary idea of mapping to the projects presented at Ca’ Scarpa and San Teonisto.
The artists in the exhibition are Oliver Laric, Jeremy Deller, Paul Maheke, Matt Mullican, James Lewis, Kiki Smith, Walid Raad, Ibrahim Mahama, Otobong Nkanga, Rochelle Goldberg, Seymour Chwast, Enam Gbewonyo, Sanford Biggers and Sarah Entwistle.