Catalogue

The book offers a comprehensive view of Nanda Vigo’s artistic production, from the sixties up to her last artworks in 2005. An exhaustive critical essay, edited by Dominique Stella, presents Nanda Vigo’s career, emphasizing her interdisciplinary approach rather than the traditional and restrictive classification of the artist as architect and designer. The book is divided into three sections: art, architecture and design, each introduced by unpublished texts by Tommaso Trini, I.J. Schoonhoven, Ettore Sottsass and Lucio Fontana, which highlight her talent in combining such different artistic expressions. Nanda Vigo was born in Milan and has studied Architecture in Losanna. After some professional experience in the United States she came back to Milan to work with Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Giò Ponti. She joined actively major European movements of artistic experimentation such as Gruppo Zero, Aktuel and Licht und Bewegung, cultivating an interdisciplinary link between architecture, art, design and the environment. She now lives and works in Italy and Africa.

The photographer John Loengard was just thirty when Life magazine sent him to the barren wastes of New Mexico in 1966 and 1967 to take a series of photographs for the eightieth birthday of Georgia O’Keeffe. The great lady of American painting had been living on her own at Ghost Farm near Abiquiu for twenty years. Already enjoying a world-wide reputation, O’Keeffe had decided to leave New York, the heart of civilization, after the death of her husband Alfred Stieglitz in 1946 and retreat to the unspoilt setting of a Native American reservation. She died in Santa Fe twenty years later in 1986, shortly after celebrating her ninety-ninth birthday. This book presents a selection of photographs taken by Loengard of the wonderful and solitary lady of the desert alongside some of her paintings. This juxtaposition sheds surprising light on how the desert landscape and the artist’s everyday life are reflected in the motifs of her paintings and shows the extent to which her artistic imagination was fuelled by the raw reality of her ascetic hermitage in the desert of New Mexico.

Libraries are spiritual places, sanctuaries of knowledge, temples of wisdom, oases of silence. From the splendid baroque libraries of monasteries to the age-old archives of the most illustrious universities, from the rich cabinets of enlightened princes to the most sober and functional buildings, they all are imbued with a sort of sacral solemnity. Since the outset of her professional career as a photographer in the mid-1970s, Candida Höfer has taken pictures of the interiors of public buildings such as castles, museums, theatres, exhibition spaces and libraries. This book is devoted to the latter. In these pages as never before, the objectivity and terseness characteristic of Candida Höfer’s work succeed in glorifying libraries all over the world of every size and period: the Trinity Library in Dublin, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, the Anna Amalia Bibliothek in Weimar shortly before the catastrophic fire as well as the libraries of the Escorial and the Villa Medici in Rome. A witty introduction by Umberto Eco reflecting on the various purposes of an ideal library and how to obviate its managerial shortcomings precedes 137 colour photographs by Candida Höfer constituting a sumptuous celebration of bibliophilism.Preface by Umberto Eco.

Born in Rotterdam in 1904, Willem de Kooning moved to the United States in 1926. Together with Gorky, Pollock, Rothko and Kline, he was one of the leading pioneers of Abstract Expressionism, which marked New York’s replacement of Paris as the world’s capital of art. De Kooning lived the longest of that group of painters and produced the most, continuing to create surprisingly daring images into the 1980s. Active in a variety of genres including figure painting, the female nude and landscapes verging on complete abstraction, he developed many different styles, each deeply personal and at the same reflecting movements of great importance in 20th-century American culture. De Kooning’s life, from embarking as a stowaway to the attainment of celebrity, repeats the classic American myth of the emigrant who crosses the ocean in search of a better life and experiences poverty, failure and success first-hand. On the basis of a decade of research including hundreds of interviews and a series of previously unpublished letters and documents, Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swann offer the first major biography of this complex and romantic figure. De Kooning. L’uomo, l’artista is a living and richly detailed portrait and reconstruction of the painter’s life from the difficult years of poverty, instability and often violent family life in Rotterdam, the scene of his academic training and initial employment in decorative art, to his arrival in the United States, where he fought doggedly to establish himself as an American artist during the Depression. His early years in the United States are marked by the influence of Gorky, another immigrant, who was not only his mentor but also the role model who inspired his willingness to sacrifice everything to art. It was not until 1948 that his first solo show at the Egan Gallery revealed his talent to critics like Rosenberg and Hess, who vied with one another to champion his work and recognized him as a charismatic leader of the New York School, which was just beginning to make an international impact. His stormy marriage to Elaine Fried, another renowned figure in the world of art, reached its crisis in the late 1940s and early ’50s. At the peak of his fame, de Kooning was caught up in a self-destructive spiral to the point of personifying the new American myth of the man destroyed by his own success. He spent his days painting powerful abstract works and provocative female figures, and his nights haunting the Cedar Tavern, talking to friends like Franz Kline and Frank O’Hara, womanizing, drinking and roaming the streets. In the 1960s, worn out by the feverish world of art and nearly destroyed by success, he retreated to the Springs on Long Island, where he painted an extraordinary series of lush pastorals followed by a vast body of haunting, ethereal late work. Until the end, afflicted by senile dementia, de Kooning remained the painter he had always been, spending the day in front of the canvas and never hesitating to destroy his creations in order to renew a constantly shifting style in accordance with his conviction that you have to change in order to stay the same.

Milan is a city dear to Orhan Pamuk, Nobel prize for literature in 2006 and author of The Museum of Innocence (2008), a novel conceived at exactly the same time as the eponymous museum in Istanbul, opened to the public a few years after the book came out. In both, reality and fiction intertwine in a project that challenges categories and encourages us to question not only relations between writing and reality and between artistic and functional objects, but also the very statute of the artwork and that of its container, the museum. The central focus of the twofold enterprise is the relationship established between word, image and representation, with “image” meaning everything that pertains to the visual realm. The youthful aspiration of Pamuk to become an artist – with drawings that did not reproduce nature, objects and streets, but the forms of his mind – fuelled the refined visual sensitivity of the author that permeates the entire novel, in which Milan itself plays a significant part. This is the city where the main character Kemal dies, after visiting the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi for the last time, and it was also in Milan, in January 2017, that the Accademia di Brera awarded Pamuk a diploma honoris causa, devoting a conference to him, the contents of which feature in this book. Together with Pamuk’s lectio magistralis, Salvatore Settis’ laudatio and contributions from scholars in different disciplines regarding the Museum of Innocence “operation”, a number of texts by the Turkish writer are presented here on his museum poetics, including a brand new piece inspired precisely by the dialogues of his Milanese days. The importance and topicality of Pamuk’s ideas, in relation not only to the mose recent museographic and museological conceptions, but also the research of contemporary artists who conceive collections as an art form, are therefore strongly reiterated: his work as a writer and artist is the expression of a precise desire not to tell the “Story”, but to bring “stories” back to life within a vision that is both utopian and real at the same time.

"Each became absorbed in their own artistic universe, in ways that gradually acquired consistency and weight over the years. Art animated their lives, an inexorable imperative. Painting was the sole, intimate necessity for both, perhaps the only real secret of their indissoluble bond."

Re-programmed Art: An Open Manifesto is an action research project that explored the impact of methods and approaches linked to open source hardware and software on the field of art. The aim was to produce a number of physical and technological artefacts whose information and implementation specifications are publicly released under free licenses.The group of digital artists and designers involved in the project had the task of re-programming a number of works by Gruppo T, the pioneering group at the forefront of the Italian art movement known as Arte Programmata. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, these artists developed a ground-breaking vision of art as reproducible, participatory and interactive, and created prototypes based on the use of algorithms and technology which were designed to be reproduced as series of constantly changing artefacts. The concept of 're-programming' is about more than just reconstructing the original works, understanding what they were made of and how they were made, and the algorithms used to incorporate an element of chance. It means bringing them to life again, reworked using new materials and technology. Pieces by Gruppo T were thus transformed into new, open artworks that can be reproduced, expanded on and completed by other users: a vibrant tribute to an original, innovative movement that occupied the no man's land between art and design.

Federica Sala interviews Michele De Lucchi to investigate his idea of creative act as basis of his work as new as his private life. Sketches taken from Michele De Lucchi scrapbooks illustrate his interdisciplinary approach.

Art is always contemporary. From this principle and the renewed collaboration between the Pinacoteca and the Accademia di Belle Arti springs the exhibition Contemporary Brera. Fabro Garutti Kounellis Paolini, a tribute to four great artists whose names are variously associated with Brera. The exhibition promotes the active presence of Contemporary Art in a historic museum such as the Pinacoteca, in keeping with the well-established role of the Palazzo di Brera as a laboratory for innovation. At the same time, it updates the revolutionary message of Processo per il museo, organized by Franco Russoli in the short-lived 1970s season of his career, encouraging visitors to experience the palace as a dynamic space in which the arts undergo a constant rebirth. On display are Luciano Fabro’s Groma per Spinoza, Io (L’Uovo) and Modo di mettere le lenzuola, and new installations have been especially designed by Alberto Garutti, Jannis Kounellis and Giulio Paolini for the rooms of the Pinacoteca, from the spacious Napoleonic halls to the chapel of St. Joseph – where they stand in direct and ‘simultaneous’ contact with the masterpieces by Raffaello, Bernardino Luini and Bramantino. This juxtaposition of works from different periods confirms and renews the ultimate significance of exhibiting art, as well as the role that the Palazzo di Brera is seeking to reclaim: that of a venue for observation, discovery and personal, inner research, always open to the contemporary.

A single place with three projects: Brera Palace tells its story, revealing its soul in all its glory through three projects. For the first time, with ‘Accademia aperta,’ students and professors open the doors to the classrooms of the Academy’s ten schools, offering visitors the unique possibility to observe the daily activities of its studios and workshops up close, while ‘Ai confini del quadro. Brera anni sessanta-settanta’ (Beyond the Frame: Brera in the 60s and 70s) puts the spotlight on historical figures of that unique era who brought international fame to Brera and its district, where “art-making” was evolving through the constant interchange both inside and out of the palace walls. ‘Bagnoli, Curran, Lim, Pistoletto, Richter. Installazioni nel Palazzo di Brera’ brings visitors into the world of contemporary art as the entire building thanks to its natural, centuries-old tradition of opening its historical spaces –  the Academy of Fine Arts, Braidense National Library, Botanical Garden, Astronomical Observatory and Art Gallery – fills with dynamism, to dialogue and interact with the new in search of unexpected parallels and convergences. Thus, past, present and future are the trajectories along which the original calling of this “encyclopaedic palace” manages to constantly express and revitalize itself. In the end, Brera puts its patrimony in touch with the contemporary world, activating a process that increases its value and engages the legends of yesterday and the talents of today and tomorrow.   Cover Photo: Cosmo Laera

Inaugurated in May 2010 to great public acclaim, and placed in receivership in May 2012 for budgetary imbalances, the MAXXI is currently in the laborious process of getting back on its feet with a different board of directors. This text is a cautionary tale of over-ambitious projects, managerial shortcomings, erratic funding and  political decisions taken without a detailed analysis of costs and benefits for the community. In the incongruous position of being a state-owned museum run by a private foundation, the MAXXI was launched without a clear, convincing cultural raison d'être, compared to similar bodies which boast a greater social utility.Alessandro Monti reconstructs the political and bureaucratic implications of creating a museum "on paper", and the controversial aspects of an administration that had to contend with an excess of competing museum spaces and an unsuitable container: designed by renowned Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid at a cost to the Treasury of over one hundred and eighty million euro, the imposing concrete building has proved to be more spectacular than functional.This in-depth investigation of the MAXXI's crucial issues and weaknesses concludes with a series of possible solutions to the current problems, and various proposals to improve future performance, rethinking the Foundation's strategic priorities and overall game plan in organisational, operational and relational terms. Moving forward, it will be important to ensure greater transparency and get the staff more involved in the management of the museum, as well as taking a more selective approach to the exhibition programme, capitalising above all on the permanent collections and finally making the MAXXI a national landmark.

Hyperrealism is usually taken to mean the current in painting that represents reality by starting from a photographic image which is enlarged as much as possible and then drawn, in an attempt to get as close as possible to life-like perception. However the phenomenon has developed in various ways and to date there is no single definition of hyperrealism.Starting from painterly hyperrealism, Rinaldo Censi investigates the characteristics, potential and variety of a cinema that could be termed hyperrealist and that (as in painting) has various different identities. The volume covers two main strands: on one hand it analyses the hyperrealism characterised by satire and social criticism against bourgeois mediocrity (including the works of Hershell Gordon Lewis, John Waters, Bob Clark and Willard Huyck); while on the other it dwells on a more subtle, profound aspect that emerges from a certain vein of experimental cinema, which explores the temporal dimension and encourages us to prioritise the photographic or chronophotographic element (this section includes Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, Carolee Schneemann, Kenneth Anger and Paul Sharits).