Big Social Game Calls Turin to the Arts

by Ilaria Ventriglia

BIG Social Game is a group show that has set itself a definite target: to join the calendar of landmark events in the contemporary art world. It is an aesthetic statement of our time and a symbol of the role which Piedmont and Turin have been building for themselves in the visual arts.

So the Big (Biennale Internazionale Arte Giovane), now into its second edition, will again be invading Turin and various outlying spaces, from 19 April to 19 May 2002. When it started, the Big attracted some five hundred young artists from Europe and from China (the guest country that was also honoured by the logo of that first edition: a flaming red dragon with pale blue scales), and nearly 150,000 visitors. Large numbers and big promises did not however prevent a number of uncertainties and naiveties.

But two years have passed since then, and this time the Big seems bent not only on expanding, but also on taking its place in the official art circuit as an international venue. The project entailed a challenging commitment and a large amount of money. About 40% of the budget has been covered by public and private partners, which makes the event unique of its kind. It also bodes well for the future of contemporary art in Italy, contributing to its reinstatement and higher appreciation.

Social Game is the theme of the venue, where Game signifies lightness, liberty, a socializing element. It means a reaction to the burden of living, with lightness but not disengagement. It is intended as a subtle tribute to Italo Calvino and his American Lectures, with the story of a lightness associated with precision and determination, not with vagueness, abandonment or chance. A whole city is “called to the arts” and transformed into a stage. On it three hundred artists – all under thirty-five and from 34 countries – will be gathering for meetings, performances, films, actions, concerts.

The visual arts will mostly comsits of installations, video works or performances. And there will be a vigorous interaction between expressive forms, in a dialogue with the city’s architectural structures, people, colours and moods.

The choice of Michelangelo Pistoletto as artistic director was the point of departure, Pistoletto being a renowned artist who has always been closely associated with Poor Art (he currently directs the Città dell’arte-Fondazione Pistoletto and the Università delle Idee in Biella. And with Pistoletto, a staff of curators have supervised the various disciplines with which the Big is concerned. Its artistic languages will be: Visual Arts (Giacinto Di Pietrantonio), i calc – casqueiro atlantico laboratorio cultural – and Corinne Diserens), Dance (Christophe Wavelet and again Corinne Diserens), Cinema (Stefano Della Casa and Paola Manera), Music (Christian Marclay), Writing (Aldo Nove), Theatre (Gianfranco Capitta), and Gastronomy (Vittorio Castellani alias Aka chef Kumalé).

A symbol halfway between a spacecraft and an insect is the image of the Big 2002. In reality it is the ground plan of the exhibition scene itself (between the Roman Quadrilateral and the River Po embankments). Also involved will be strutures like the former Royal Riding School (headquarters), the Teatro Gobetti, the Accademia di Belle Arti, the Museo del Cinema, Piazza Castello, Via Po, the University and Piazza Vittorio, in addition to numerous public establishments and theatres.

One of the most interesting curatorial policies has been that all exhibits be assembled and installed on the spot. The artists will arrive in Turin with their ideas only, whilst all their works will be created in situ, thus establishing a practical example of interaction between global knowledge and local roots. Some have dubbed this formula “correct globalization”. Strong reminiscences of 1960s atmospheres, which might today be appropriately called no-global) seem to motivate many of the works.

The British ArtLab shoot documentaries written and devised by inmates of death rows in Louisiana prisons – thus echoing the work of Lori Anderson for the Fondazione Prada when in real time she projected and transported a prisoner condemned to death into the temple of Milanese art. It is also a way of reprieving at least thoughts. Massimo Di Nonno and Annamaria Ferrero will be asking inhabitants of the Cavallerizza quarter to exchange their old doormats for new ones decorated with the word Welcome. Their trodden past will be turned into a large and welcoming patchwork.

Cyclo (Carsten Nicolai & Ryoji Ikeda), who have always worked on sounds and noises, will be acting on a critical area of the city: Fiat Lingotto. For an hour, some thirty white Fiat cars will travel at different speeds on the test circuit, with windows lowered and sounds at 1000 Hz. This art implicated with facts and people of melancholy memory, with nothing to denounce if not a taste for narration, has chosen to grow lighter until it actually disappears. And in perfect harmony with the social and anthropological mutations arising from technology, the Big Act II has invited as its guest nation, after China, the magic world of the Internet (Guest Net is www.bigguest.net).

A platform of thought and exchange, an extension of the earth, a new territory in which to meet, to examine projects, to propose and play. It is a social game to be played round a table too, because, as a true third millennium event, if we want to see the Big 2002 at home while comunicating with the artist, we can do so. For three months in fact a website has collected works and projects and protected them with a privately known password.

The sole purpose was to claim a primogeniture of ideas, to get the artists to talk and to avoid overlappings. Today the curtain falls and we too are granted the key to see: www.bigtorino.net. From here you can click on artists and then on BIGNET. Have a good browse!

19.4.2002-19.5.2002
BIG Torino 2002
Via Maria Vittoria 18
10123 Turin, Italy
T +39-011-4430010/11
F +39-011-4430021
http://www.bigtorino.net
e-mail: bigtorino@bigtorino.net
Michelangelo Pistoletto, artistic director of BIG
Michelangelo Pistoletto, artistic director of BIG
Cavallerizza Reale (Royal Riding School), via Verdi 8 in Torino, headquarters of BIG
Cavallerizza Reale (Royal Riding School), via Verdi 8 in Torino, headquarters of BIG

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