Johan & Levi: il punto

In his works Adrian Paci creates stories in pictures that blend the uniqueness of everyday experience with the history of painting, film and literature. He reflects on issues like loss and migration: people abandoning their homelands and embarking on a quest for a personal and geographical alternative. Paci works with photography, sculpture and video, using different techniques and materials which enable him to achieve considerable freedom of expression and style.Against the backdrop of these narratives he often inserts or simply evokes the presence of one or more female figures that do not appear to play a distinct role but rather embody a mystery that the artist chooses not to reveal. But what is the role of the female figure in this fascinating visual era?She sprang a desire to explore this aspect of Paci's work by analysing a selection of works on the theme. The book, which features a new piece by the artist, is the result of a dialogue between Paci and Paola Nicolin: an opportunity to reflect on the visible or invisible presence of a female figure that adds a human element to the narrative. In Paci's art women are often entrusted with the task of preserving memories and traditions, and being the focal point for the interwoven stories that contribute to constructing our constantly shifting identity: the alternation of crisis, alienation, abandonment and return that characterises human existence.

It was in the 1970s that the Argentinean video maker David Lamelas began producing specific works based on long periods of residence in various European cities. This book is devoted to the “People of Milan” project undertaken in 1970 specifically for a solo show at the Galleria Françoise Lambert in Milan. The continuous flow of a four-minute film minutely documenting the passersby and events on the busy high street of Via Orefici is juxtaposed with eleven photographs, taken at regular intervals over the same period of time. The publication, of a markedly artistic character, presents the famous artist’s “Milanese period” through a combination of images from the video and observations by Lamelas on his Italian experience.

What is an image and why have images become so important in our daily lives? And what does the gaze mean? Federico Ferrari reflects on our society of images and the cadenced relationship between words and pictures, a relationship that forges our horizon. He focuses on the use made of images and the world they create, and how the gaze refracts: a single vision of the world, a single measure is impossible. The contemporary image calls for a new definition of the gaze, which springs from the unique nature of each vision and is also capable of embracing its plurality. As the number of possible visions is by definition infinite, what really counts is what underpins them and is therefore common to them all. To borrow the terms of set theory, it is an empty set that appears null but also contains something: our gaze. The force that precedes us and is remains open, capable of going beyond all possible visions, all given images. The empty set of the gaze and the power of vision.

This book is in the first in a series produced in partnership with Miart, the Milan art fair that in 2013 launched a new international outlook, opening up to design and architecture. The book brings together the internationally renowned architect and designer Andrea Branzi, and Alessandro Rabottini, art critic and head curator of the Bergamo Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, who has long been interested in Branzi’s work. The close dialogue between the two has led to the creation of this artist’s book for Miart 2013, which focuses on the designer in particular.

Andy Warhol superstar traces the artist’s activities “on screen”, from his films and adverts to television appearances.This side of his career was what definitively confirmed his superstar status and led to him being both revered and hated to the point of assassination attempts. The book explores his experiences in this sphere and the figures who accompanied him and came to represent an integral part of the Warhol milieu, first and foremost his muse Edie Sedgwick. Theatre expert Luca Scarlini investigates Warhol’s multiple identities: his phobias, contradictions and aspirations regarding his image and the production of works for the small screen and the big screen, against a backdrop of pop culture and camp, the kitsch-dominated scenario of the 60s and 70s.

Fifty years after the first Arte Programmata (Programmed Art) exhibition in Milan, 1962, the author offers a reflection on what remains of a Neo-avant-garde experiment that sought to combine theory of perception with industrial production. Initiated by Bruno Munari, presented by Umberto Eco, and sponsored by Olivetti, Arte Programmata was not only an Italian movement traceable to the broader world of kinetic art. It was also a real attempt to define the field of art in an industrial and urban society, on the basis of the then brand new concept of “programming”. A concept pivotal to the debate among intellectuals linked to Olivetti, then a forerunner in the field of small electronic processors. After a long period of oblivion and silence, Arte Programmata has now found new favour and aroused renewed critical, historical and market interest. Why is this happening? What makes that school still relevant today? What kind of nostalgic movement or revival is it currently triggering? The author’s adroit analysis passes seamlessly from the 1960s to the present, seeking to establish the reasons for this lasting success. At the same time, it investigates  the possibilities of a utopia linked to the concept of “industrial art”, while considering that definition of “art”:  the real reason for the movement’s transcending the half-century that has passed since its birth.