From 4 to 20 May 2018, GAMeC is pleased to present the exhibition Linee di forza + varie sensazioni (Lines of Force + Various Sensations), curated by Martina Sabbadini, the second of two winning projects in the schools for curatorship section, selected during the 9th Edition of the Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi per l’Arte – EnterPrize.
This prize gives young curators selected by leading Italian scholars, the opportunity to present an exhibition project conceived for GAMeC’s Spazio Caleidoscopio. Each project interconnects one or more works on display in the museum Collection with works by other contemporary artists.

During the last Qui. Enter Atlas – International Symposium of Emerging Curators – hosted by the GAMeC in May 2017 – the five nominees for the Premio Lorenzo Bonaldi per l’Arte were able to compare personal experience with young curators attending courses in curating practice. The workshop ended with prizes awarded to the winner of the 9th edition, Enchanted Bodies / Fetish for Freedom, curated by Bernardo Mosqueira, and to two projects of this section, established in 2015.

Specially conceived for Spazio Caleidoscopio at GAMeC, the exhibition Linee di forza + varie sensazioni (Lines of Force + Various Sensations) generates a series of reflections around boundaries, space perception and identity.

The starting point of this project is the work Linee forze di paesaggio (Simultaneità di sensazioni: cielo+case+alberi+fiori), painted by the futurist artist Giacomo Balla in 1918, at the end of the first world war, and part of a series that through the repetition of the same composition of colourful geometric shapes, explores the neurovisual phenomenon of persistence of vision and synaesthesia. A hundred years later, this exhibition retraces Balla’s “lines of force” comparing his research on space perception with contemporary reflections by artists and researchers.

The exhibition opens with works by the collective Espejismos S.A. de C.V.[1], composed by the mathematician Javier Bracho and the ceramist Juan Sandoval, that was founded in the Nineties during the conception of the UNAM Science Museum (Mexico City).  The name of the collective means “mirage” and evokes the term “espejo” (mirror), the material that the duo used to build a series of three-dimensional kaleidoscopes of infinite space. These kaleidoscopes provide a rare view of the symmetries of the space we inhabit. In a global context exposed to constant fractures and interconnections, these kaleidoscopes may be interpreted as a metaphor and a tool to articulate accidental changes of perspective and reconfigure our sense of space and boundaries.

In the video The Ghost of Modernity, Lixiviados (2012) the Argentinian artist Miguel Angel Ríos stages a transparent cube which floats freely above a desert landscape in a social context completely disconnected from the dynamism of the global economy. Through a visual analogy between abstract forms reminiscent of American minimalism and the precarious houses of this community, Ríos makes a comparative analysis of Latin-American territories, states and institutions, and their mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. We can perceive the transition from the two-dimensional painting of Balla to the three-dimensionality of this work; the passage from the lines of the futurist composition to the planes that compose the translucent cube; the contrast between the utopian vision of the Futurist movement to the ghost towns neglected by modernity.

At last, a video linked to two performative projects of the French artist and choreographer Myriam Lefkowitz is presented.  Et sait-on jamais dans une obscurité Pareille? and Walk, Hands, Eyes (a city) are immersive experiences in which each participant is accompanied by a performer to explore urban space, perception and attention.

Walk, Hands, Eyes (Bergamo), will be performed during the exhibition period at GAMeC by students of the Accademia di Belle Arti G. Carrara di Bergamo who attended a workshop with Myriam Lefkowitz held in April.
The performance consists of a silent walk through the streets of the cities that host it, and requires trust between two people who do not know each other. The participant, with closed eyes, is guided by the performer on a walk through the city. Sporadically, the guide frames a vision and indicates the participant to open his/her eyes briefly, and “record” a snap-shot of the surrounding environment. From the sense of fragility, the sounds of the city and the framed images, a new vision of the urban landscape emerges in the participant’s mind.

Walk, Hands, Eyes (Bergamo) will take place on five dates during the exhibition period: on the occasion of the opening, on 3 May, as well as during the finissage of 7 June, it will be possible to live this experience freely (subjected to availability). On Saturday 5, 12 and 19 May, the performance will take place in the afternoon, and reservation is required.