P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

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P.S.1 Newspaper

2007 Fall

Senso Unico: Spotlight on Italian Artists

Sarah Scandiffio

Francesco Vezzoli
ALL ABOUT ANNI - ANNI vs. MARLENE (THE SAGA BEGINS)
2006
Digital print on paper
78 3/4 x 114 1/5 in
Courtesy the artist and Gagosian Gallery

 

Paola Pivi

Life is Great

2007

80 x 78 x 44"

Urethane foam, plastic, wood, steel, feathers

Courtesy Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milan

P.S.1 has a long tradi­tion of recognizing the unique artistic processes and work­ing methods of contemporary Italian artists. In 1998, for the first time in P.S.1 history, Mi­chelangelo Pistoletto occupied and transformed the entire museum as his solo exhibition space. Curator Achille Bonita Oliva’s Minimalia: An Italian Vi­sion in 20th Century Art came to P.S.1 in 1999, presenting works created by early Ital­ian Minimalists and illuminat­ing their role in the evolution of art history. In 2001, famed tableau-vivantiste Luigi Ontani made his U.S. debut at P.S.1 in a large retrospective exhibition. In recent years, from a younger generation of Italians, Massi­mo Bartolini and Loris Cecchini have captivated the New York public with their large-scale sculptural installations inspired by such natural wonders as waves and clouds.

Twenty-five years ago, P.S.1 Director Alanna Heiss and Italian Curator Germano Celant organized and brought to the United States The Knot: Arte Povera, an exhibition juxtaposing the Arte Povera movement in Italy with American Minimal art, which P.S.1 famously spotlighted in those years. However, as Heiss states in the preface of the catalogue, “Although presented as a group, these artists, in fact, do not repre­sent one. Their divergent interests and pursuits make them more dissimilar than similar…”

Senso Unico revisits this dynamic. Trans­lated as “one way,” a commonplace traffic sign, the title would suggest a shared sentiment among an established generation of Italian art­ists. However, translated literally, “senso unico” also means “unique feeling.” With this new def­inition in mind, Senso Unico presents a selection of distinctive artists from Italy who have main­tained a prominent presence in the international contemporary art world.

The eight artists featured in Senso Unico can be connected by the dramatic, almost the­atrical effects produced by their works. Known primarily for her performances, Vanessa Beec­roft exhibits in this show two delicate paintings of ghostly feminine visages reminiscent of draw­ings by arte povera’s Marisa Merz, who exhib­ited at P.S.1 years ago. In his Bouncing Skull video, Paolo Canevari transforms the simple action of a boy dribbling a soccer ball by replac­ing the object with a rubber human skull, filmed at the site of the bombed-out NATO headquar­ters in Belgrade. A trained sculptor, Canevari’s works explore the nature of symbols, projecting strong social and political messages. Angelo Filomeno, a New Yorker of 15 years whose stu­dio is located in an active costume shop, creates elaborately adorned headdresses/helmets and embroidered textile works with metallic thread, beads, crystals, feathers and other opulent fin­ery. Albanian by origin, recent P.S.1 International Projects artist Adrian Paci has lived in Italy since 1997. For Senso Unico, he exhibits a series of paintings entitled Vangelo secondo Pasolini (“The Gospel according to Pasolini”). Borrowing its title and images from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Os­car-nominated film Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (“The Gospel according to Matthew”), the work pays homage to the late director, whose Neo­realist films depict the bleak reality of 1964 Italy as well as the biblical story of Christ. Frequently working with imagery of animals, Paola Pivi re­places the fur of a life-size polar bear with yellow feathers, making the grand creature humorous while calling to mind the morality and absurdity of crossbreeding. One of the younger artists in the show, Pietro Roccasalva, who is primarily a painter, has created a site-specific installation of two mysterious identical rooms, creating a play of perspective and hidden images. Devices used by Da Vinci and other Italian Renaissance paint­ers are reclaimed by Roccasalva in a renewed contemporary form. Rä di Martino, the youngest artist in the exhibition and a New York resident, utilizes film to glimpse a performer’s private world as he carefully applies make-up and a blue dress before launching into a wild can-can dance. Senso Unico also includes the U.S. premiere of Francesco Vezzoli’s MARLENE REDUX: A True Hollywood Story!, a fictional documentary of the artist’s own life and career exposed in a popular tabloid-driven television format.

While all of the artists taking part in Senso Unico are bound by their italianita’, P.S.1 sheds light on their unique contributions to the art world as they follow their own individual paths. These artists are highly recognized by the inter­national contemporary art world, and P.S.1 plac­es the globetrotting octet together for the first time under an Italian banner.