CÉSAR MENEGHETTI. I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO
Sala Carlo Scarpa
a cura di Simonetta Lux
progetto scientifico Alessandro Zuccari, Simonetta Lux
progetto promosso dalla Comunità di Sant’Egidio_ Laboratori d’Arte
“Vivere è convivere. Siamo esseri incompleti e incompiuti perché uno non esiste senza l’altro.
L’arte non può raggiungere il suo obiettivo se preclude qualcosa o qualcuno.”
César Meneghetti
Dopo la presenza alla 55. Biennale di Venezia del 2013, la mostra di César Meneghetti presenta al MAXXI una nuova serie di opere nate nell’ambito del progetto I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO.
Nelle opere di Meneghetti le persone disabili che l’artista ha incontrato si presentano come persone, pienamente in grado di produrre pensiero, spazi e visioni, persone che sanno, ricordano, valutano, operano, amano, creano.
Durata 4 anni, la fase di ricerca di questo lavoro ha coinvolto più di 200 persone con disabilità mentale che vivono nella capitale, attraverso un lavoro multidisciplinare realizzato con i Laboratori d’Arte della Comunità di Sant’Egidio per indagare una condizione di confine.
Il lungo processo di ricerca e le azioni formative, laboratoriali e creative saranno narrate nel libro che accompagnerà la mostra I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO mettendo in discussione l’idea di abilità/disabilità, spesso fondata sul pregiudizio.
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CÉSAR MENEGHETTI. I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO
Carlo Scarpa Room
curated by Simonetta Lux
Scientific Concept by Alessandro Zuccari, Simonetta Lux
a project promoted by the Comunità di Sant’Egidio_ Laboratori d’Arte
“Living is living together. We are incomplete and unfinished beings because one does not exist without the other.
Art cannot achieve its objective if it precludes something or someone.”
César Meneghetti
After his presence at the 55th Venice Biennale of 2013, the exhibition by César Meneghetti presents at MAXXI a new series of works born within the ambit of the I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO project.
In Meneghetti’s works the disabled people met by the artist present themselves as persons, perfectly capable of producing thought, space and vision, persons that know, remember, valuate, work, love and create.
Over the course of four years, the research phase of this project has involved over 200 people with mental disabilities who live in the capital, through a multidisciplinary approach realised with the Art Workshops of the Comunità di Sant’Egidio in order to investigate the concept of confines.
The long process of research and education, workshop and creative actions will be narrated in the book that will accompany the exhibition I\O _IO È UN ALTRO, putting up for discussion the idea of ability/disability, frequently founded on prejudice.
LE OPERE / WORKS:
I\O_WORK #01 VIDEOBOOTH #3
The VIDEOBOOTH ‘frames’ its interlocutors, recording their every gaze, gesture, stance, and words (including the words of those who cannot utter them, and type on a keyboard instead). Meneghetti has extrapolated a vivid sequence of stills which, edited into a quadripartite pattern, come into mutual exchange and interaction. What ensues is a wholly original Gallery of People who show themselves for what they are, in a display of dignity and fragility, and truthfully voice their views on matters of great moment (happiness, love, reality, solitude, death, seclusion, richness, change, normality and diversity…). […] It is almost the obverse of a canonical gallery of heroes and heroines, because their stance is that of the antihero, and their beauty is anti-canonical: authenticity is what lends them beauty. Not exempla virtutis, then, these characters are almost exempla veritatis…” (A. Zuccari, in Antieroica eloquenza degli esclusi, I\O, Maretti Editore 2013).
What ensues has the appearance of a long take, although the sequence is in fact intricately and invisibly edited: providing a key to the overall project, the work portrays the disabled in some form of dialogue with each other that involves the audience too.
I\O_WORK #03 EX-SISTENTIA
Gabriele Tagliaferro is affected by an acute form of autism. With Ex-sistentia, César Meneghetti makes visible his awareness of a distance between his body and his intended actions and ideations. Ex-sistentia thus reveals to the art-viewing public how Gabriele perceives the space around him and how he experiences his own thoughts. Fifthy small monitors display the slowly revolving image of Gabriele, taken within the video booth. Word-fragments typed on a computer come at the close of each apparition. With each monitor displaying a different movement and the simultaneous sound of words and tunes in Gabriele’s own voice, we gradually come close to the root of his message that ‘all is word’.
I\O_WORK #06 LOVISTORI
The photograph tells of another life for Patrizia Nasini and another story for Vincenzo Camelia. The old life, related in their own voice, is no longer there and remains unseen. An entrance hall. A kitchen. A bedroom. A large photograph dominates the others. She, dressed in white. He, in dark dress. A small, happy, normal couple of newlyweds. Patrizia had been neither ‘normal’ nor happy beforehand. Behind the image, beyond the photograph, lie stories that no image can tell or enclose within itself.
I\O_OPERA #08 PASSAGGI-PAESAGGI
I\O_WORK #08 PASSAGES-LANDSCAPES
Life-size images of people appear on four monitors, as they stand upright and walk rightward and leftward with their eyes shut. A metaphor for existence, of our being ephemeral, passing forms – either ignored or unaware. Constant movement is the only way for us not to be mired down in mediocrity. Dislocation in space is a constant loss of balance. Walking, passing, transiting are images of our existential condition. Imbalance and lack of certainty are our only certainty.
I\O_WORK #17 UNTITLED
I\O. 1\0. The one represents the in\dependent man, the man who fulfils social functions. The zeroes represent the failures, the misfits, the imperfect, the uncertain, the artists, the madmen. There’s something more between the ones and the zeroes. Thus, the binary code, icon of i\o, creates a human landscape made also of digital noise and glitches. Experiencing i\o revealed to me a sort of super humanity, thanks to error, the unforeseen, the flawed, human noise in the digital age, where art once again meets life in this paradoxical numerical process. I\o [me], those who from zero to n dimensions also turn into us [we].
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AN EVENT WITHIN CÉSAR MENEGHETTI. I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO
César Meneghetti. L’artista, il progetto
Sala Graziella Lonardi Buontempo – ingresso libero fino a esaurimento posti
Incontro con l’artista César Meneghetti, che presenta al pubblico la genesi delle opere e l’evoluzione del progetto di I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO. Un racconto che ripercorrerà le fasi di un lavoro multidisciplinare fondato sull’incontro delle differenze e sul superamento delle barriere sociali e culturali, lungo 4 anni.
Open Platform. Workshop #1
Spazio doc, Carlo Scarpa Hall
What does being “normal” mean for you?
Respond to the artist’s call, become part of the exhibition César Meneghetti. I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO leaving your view on the question normality/otherness.
You may make your contribution by completing the form that follows, offering your view directly in Spazio doc, in MAXXI’s Carlo Scarpa Hall, or by taking part in Dialoghi A-Simmetrici(24-25 November).
A selection of these contributions will be exhibited and shared in the same space.
The audiences opions will also be debated during the conference Incontro/Art as a tool: arte di scambiarsi mondi, which will be held on the 27th of November from 4:00 PM in the museum’s auditorium.
A-Symmetrical Dialogues. Workshop #2
Spazio doc – Gallery Carlo Scarpa
An interview with visitors at the exhibition by the artist César Meneghetti and a number of the I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO project participants. Involved in an a-symmetrical dialogue with the video booth and experiencing a reversal of roles, visitors are enabled to stand ‘on the other side’, and are personally engaged as protagonists.
Discussion/Art as a tool: arte di scambiarsi mondi
MAXXI Auditorium
Featuring multi-disciplinary contributions, including visitors’ survey responses,the discussion will explore the themes raised by César Meneghetti’s I\O_IO È UN ALTRO exhibition and project: the dividing line between normality and difference, art as a means to explore exclusion, and the avenues for change in overcoming prejudices against individuals.
Our guest speakers are Amelia Broccoli, Filippo Ceccarelli, Peppe Dell’Acqua, Simonetta Lux, Dacia Maraini, César Meneghetti and Beppe Sebaste.
Moderator: Alessandro Zuccari.
Per-formation_Action as perception by Cristina Elias. Workshop #3/Performance
Museum Hall
Continuing in the line of the exhibition César Meneghetti. I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO, the performance brings to the museum a silent language based on the body. Cristina Elias leads an interactive performance involving audience and performers in an exploration of the theme of invisibility. By the exclusion of one of the primary senses, vision, new channels are activated for the perception of the Other.
A-Symmetrical Dialogues. Workshop #1 part 2
Spazio Doc – Gallery Carlo Scarpa
An interview with visitors at the exhibition by the artist César Meneghetti and a number of the IO_ IO È UN ALTRO project participants. Involved in an a-symmetrical dialogue with the video booth and experiencing a reversal of roles, visitors are enabled to stand ‘on the other side’, and are personally engaged as protagonists.
