Exhibitions, Italy, Bologna, 27 January 2011
The exhibition called “Shock therapy” is placed among Arte Fiera OFF events organized for Art First Bologna 2011; it also inaugurates Marco Testa’s project “I CARE”, whose aim is to ask to some young art curators, who were given a title for the event, to take care of the whole artistic process, from the contact with the artists, to the mounting of the exhibition and the writing of a critical text.
Marco Testa has selected the following young art curators: Alessandra De Bianchi, Valentina Filice, Chiara Ronchini, Olivia Turchi, who will all cooperate with him in the launch of the 19 artists of the so-called group of the USEless: an artistic and concept movement born in Bologna in 2009.
Sciandra’s performance (Sciandra is the very name of the performer, who is one of the artists of the USEless) will take place during the Art White Night of January 29.
One might ask nowadays which is the role of Art in a society globally facing such a deep crisis that even cultural dynamics are influenced, such a wide crisis to make us unable to view its present and future effects; likewise the role of Art seems to be almost a USEless category that hardly manages to capture one’s attention in a world made of armored policies of self-preservation. In a world always more and more distant from the real needs of everyday life, in a world where people do not recognize and find themselves, in a world less and less willing to invest in culture because its economical impact constitutes an insignificant percentage in relation to the national gross domestic product, in such a world one might ask which USEless efforts Art can make to justify its survival.
“SHOCK THERAPY” is an attempt to regain control of our lives. Even if our present life might seem prone to barbarize our values, also our spiritual values, even if economics has become a self-referenced virtuality, as for instance it happens in public finance where communication seems to have been absorbed by the mass media, where everything seems to be on the constant verge of implosion, one can register the signs of a cultural shock going on, a sort of therapeutic shock for survival. A cultural shock therapy can take place through creativity by being aware of its apparent uselessness, as it provokes instead synergies and concepts that enable us -by the use of irony, provocative tools and the rediscovery of drowsy emotions- to distinguish, and therefore to individually choose, what does not belong to us. The ability and utility to choose make mankind free, even free to think we can change a world we do not like any longer. We can change it not by using utopian formulas, but by exploiting the strength hidden in everyday’s playful little events. The breaking of pre-constituted schemes has stressed out the contradictions of our society, and it has also involuntarily triggered off the search of new tools, of new ways of expression and communication. Creativity through art expressions has always stimulated human progress. Since the Paleolith, when mankind hardly satisfied its primary needs, humanity has felt the need to mark and enrich life with artistic signs. Such notion should make us understand the strength and importance of such value, that even though USEless, enables us to create the dynamics needed to improve the quality of the place in which we live, and also the meaning of everyday’s life. Those who have been unmoved by the collapse of Pompei’s ruins, those who are ready to offload their own responsibilities as regards today’s cultural instability onto somebody else, well, those people cannot avoid seeing that Art can be a cultural tool to turn upside down one’s vision of life and way of thinking.
Marco Testa has selected the following young art curators: Alessandra De Bianchi, Valentina Filice, Chiara Ronchini, Olivia Turchi, who will all cooperate with him in the launch of the 19 artists of the so-called group of the USEless: an artistic and concept movement born in Bologna in 2009.
Sciandra’s performance (Sciandra is the very name of the performer, who is one of the artists of the USEless) will take place during the Art White Night of January 29.
One might ask nowadays which is the role of Art in a society globally facing such a deep crisis that even cultural dynamics are influenced, such a wide crisis to make us unable to view its present and future effects; likewise the role of Art seems to be almost a USEless category that hardly manages to capture one’s attention in a world made of armored policies of self-preservation. In a world always more and more distant from the real needs of everyday life, in a world where people do not recognize and find themselves, in a world less and less willing to invest in culture because its economical impact constitutes an insignificant percentage in relation to the national gross domestic product, in such a world one might ask which USEless efforts Art can make to justify its survival.
“SHOCK THERAPY” is an attempt to regain control of our lives. Even if our present life might seem prone to barbarize our values, also our spiritual values, even if economics has become a self-referenced virtuality, as for instance it happens in public finance where communication seems to have been absorbed by the mass media, where everything seems to be on the constant verge of implosion, one can register the signs of a cultural shock going on, a sort of therapeutic shock for survival. A cultural shock therapy can take place through creativity by being aware of its apparent uselessness, as it provokes instead synergies and concepts that enable us -by the use of irony, provocative tools and the rediscovery of drowsy emotions- to distinguish, and therefore to individually choose, what does not belong to us. The ability and utility to choose make mankind free, even free to think we can change a world we do not like any longer. We can change it not by using utopian formulas, but by exploiting the strength hidden in everyday’s playful little events. The breaking of pre-constituted schemes has stressed out the contradictions of our society, and it has also involuntarily triggered off the search of new tools, of new ways of expression and communication. Creativity through art expressions has always stimulated human progress. Since the Paleolith, when mankind hardly satisfied its primary needs, humanity has felt the need to mark and enrich life with artistic signs. Such notion should make us understand the strength and importance of such value, that even though USEless, enables us to create the dynamics needed to improve the quality of the place in which we live, and also the meaning of everyday’s life. Those who have been unmoved by the collapse of Pompei’s ruins, those who are ready to offload their own responsibilities as regards today’s cultural instability onto somebody else, well, those people cannot avoid seeing that Art can be a cultural tool to turn upside down one’s vision of life and way of thinking.
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