Culture Archive
Of Death and Dying
SEPTEMBER 2018 - DECEMBER 2019
From September 2018 until December 2019, the Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio presented the program Of Death and Dying, focusing on individuality in relation to death and more specifically, to its three dimensions: the socio-political dimension (euthanasia, abortion, suicide, the death penalty, or accidental death as a consequence of conflict or natural disasters), the ideological dimension (atheism, agnosticism, and religious, esoteric and mystic beliefs about the possibility of life after death) and the celebratory dimension (aspects related to different funerary rituals and the mourning process). Besides the winning projects of the open call, aimed at all artists in every branch and hybridization of the arts, who presented in total more than five hundred projects, the program will include creations and productions by the Compagnia Dello Scompiglio, discussions, exhibitions and shows by other artists and companies.
Provisional Assemblages
a multidisciplinary and varied season focused on individuality in relation/conflict with gender
performances / concerts / installations / exhibitions / lectures / workshops and children's theatre
11 MARCH 2016 - 11 JUNE 2017
The Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio presents Assemblaggi Provvisori (Provisional Assemblages): exhibitions, installations, performances, concerts, discussions, theatre for teens and children, and workshops focusing on individuality in connection and/or in conflict with gender, and the absence of causality and coincidence between biological sex, masculinity–femininity and sexual orientation. The programme, which also includes the winning projects of the international open call to artists, announced in January 2015 and aimed at all artists in every declination and hybridization of the arts, will take place from March 2016 to spring 2017.
In what way do the social and cultural conventions and constructs interfere with identity? To what extent do the traditions and stereotypes of language, education, gestures, style, clothes or perspectives influence and perhaps mask who we are, how we present ourselves, what kind of relationships we establish with others and what role we perform in society? How can we disarrange these stereotypes as if they were theatre props, part of a continually changing game, or create languages that transcend the male/female dichotomy and the very act of representation?
Assemblaggi Provvisori is an attempt to allow doubt to arise, to renounce the security of belonging and to facilitate the movement between the different tones and chromatisms, through projects and events that can bring into focus socio-cultural, anthropological, biographical and autobiographical aspects.
Sui Generis
Performance festival
curated by Eugenio Viola and Angel Moya Garcia
with Luigi Presicce, Ruben Montini, Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz, Yan Xing, Alexandra Pirici e Manuel Pelmuş, Rosy Rox, Carlos Motta, Eddie Peake, Karol Radziszewski, Miguel Gutierrez and Regina José Galindo
March – july 2016
The performance festival Sui Generis, curated by Eugenio Viola and Angel Moya Garcia, has explored the conceptual complexity of gender, as part of a season that the Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio has dedicated to this theme.
The Latin expression “sui generis” (literally: of its own kind), is well-known, in the language of scholastic philosophy, and is most commonly used to emphasize the atypicality of a subject or an argument. Moreover, how can we relate, today, to the delicate and complex concepts related to identity and gender? Is it still necessary to discuss these, without the risk of locking them into framework of an ideology, of a normative order that forces them into a panorama of already established possibilities? How should we confront them in their various ethical, political, social, cultural, anthropological, religious, imagined and symbolic implications? Finally, what are the spaces for a critical debate that embraces, in a perspective that inclines towards the co-existence of the differences, the various phenomena that inhabit the conceptual universe linked to gender, such as heteronormativity, feminism, body, identity and egalitarianism of gender?
It is common knowledge that the term “gender” refers to a sexual identity free from the biological difference between the sexes and is used to distinguish both significant social connections to this difference, as well as the relative symbolic projections and the resulting cultural depictions derived from this. Therefore, gender studies represent an interdisciplinary approach that is extremely heterogeneous, an environment of studies that is considerably discussed and in constant evolution. It is no accident that the same concept of “gender” is subject to numerous variables, determined by geo-political area, historical period and socio-cultural contexts of belonging.
The so-called “gender theories” continue to provoke the political and cultural debate, gathering diverse issues, from philosophy to social science, that intercept both feminist theories - linked to the discussion on egalitarianism of gender; and political debate - related to homophobia and the right to self-determination for transsexual and intersex persons, meeting the demands of a varied LGBTI universe and complicating what is accepted as “natural” and biologically normal. It is no surprise that the debate on gender questions the role of tradition, stereotypes, language, education, actions, style, dress or networking modes, provoking reactionary positions that erect barriers of violent ideological collision and waves of renewed intolerance that often animate the public debate. We only have to look at, by way of an illustrative example, the recent events in Italian politics, specifically the reactionary arguments in the discussion of a bill, trying to fill the legal vacuum that makes us one of the last in Europe, to introduce same-sex civil partnerships. For this reason, therefore, the discussion on gender still remains a perennially pressing current issue. From this, rather difficult, premise, Sui Generis, curated by Eugenio Viola and Angel Moya Garcia, has examined the conceptual complexity of gender, presenting a series of performances, as part of the season, which the Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio has dedicated to individuality
in relation to and/or in conflict with gender. The series approaches this theme, investigating both its semantic ambiguity and its relative forms, stylistically and in media, adopted by the artists to analyse the ongoing transformations.
After all, we live in a present that witnesses the paradox of a huge theoretical production about gender and its normativization, as opposed to a reality experienced by old and new sectarianism that feeds on the hate, prejudice and fear of confronting all those individuals considered “diverse”, and out of social conventions or from consensual practices that outline the boundaries of so-called normality. On the one hand an approach supported by genetics and biotechnology that interprets gender in neutral meaning, like a “provisional assemblage”, porous and multi-coded, at the intersection of multiple identities, suspended between the social, biological and symbolic; on the other hand, a convenient predisposition towards homogenisation and control, imposed or instilled through manipulation, orientation, influences or alterations of the everyday and measured on the basis of defined social or cultural parameters, such as language, education, actions or customs.
Considering these premises, Sui Generis has proposed artists whose work, connected to the body and performativity, offers perspectives of heterogeneous research that address problems of identity and gender and their portrayal in the media. Dissimilar artists in their perception, declension and poetry, who overturn socially acquired and uncritically pre-formed concepts, reaffirming the reasons for reflection on the difference that can outline, from diverse points of view, a discourse on equality. Artists able to trace possible paths of communication between universes apparently opposed, towards a recognition of equality that is, at the same time, full recognition of the difference, confronting, without prejudice, the theme of relationship, of meeting and the handling of otherness, not only sexual and gender, but also cultural, ethical, religious, social and political.
I can reach you (from one to many)
Bianco-Valente, Claudia Losi, Valerio Rocco Orlando
curated by DARIA FILARDO, PIETRO GAGLIANÒ and ANGEL MOYA GARCIA
3 October 2015 - 28 FEBruary 2016
I can reach you (from one to many) reflects on the idea of meeting, observed on linguistic, emotional, relational and political levels.
The artists involved share a common factor within various relationships between bodies, thoughts, cultures, and communities, and over the course of several residency periods at the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio, they have devised three projects that will take shape from October 2015 to March 2016, developing a dialogue with their context, and in successive stages, through gatherings, dislocation and refocussing.
Born as a collective meditation developed between the artists and curators, I can reach you develops from the works presented at the inauguration and proceeds to successive horizons in a series of events.
Bianco-Valente present an environmental installation that occupies the large exhibition space: Frequenza Fondamentale immerses us in a place that is at once distant and internal, sidereal and intimate. The installation combines various lights and a range of sounds that move the space, evoking the mass and velocity of revolving planets in the solar system. Bianco-Valente create a pulsating and immersive experience that causes the visitor to move, to find a position, to feel the resonance inside the body and outside amongst the bodies.
A work-in-progress, Dove il passo by Claudia Losi focusses on the plurality of the experiences of the artist during a walking trip from Piacenza to Scompiglio. The walk is interpreted as a cognitive act in which the sensory places (landmarks) are identified, assumed as such by their physical characteristics or by events, even distant, which carry traces: points of geographical-emotional density, along which run perceptual experiences (colour, time, distance, fatigue) and narratives gathered from her own history or from other voices collected on her journey.
Una domanda che cammina by Valerio Rocco Orlando, is a study centred on the idea of the wandering pilgrim and hospitality as a relational moment, and develops as an installation that, over several stages, gradually reveals the process of construction of the work and causing the public to be a participant in the drama of the work. The first stage, for the inauguration at the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio, commits the artist to a conversation with one person at a time, aimed at defining the content for future phases, at Lucca and Altopascio, where the installation will be presented in its final form.
A calendar of events up to the finissage on 28 February 2016 will be announced in the next weeks.
In the course of the programme, which combines curatorial design with the artists’ visions, the exhibition space will expand both geographically, beyond the confines of the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio, and in time, requiring new appraisals in the presence of the public.
Bianco-Valente
Giovanna Bianco was born in Latronico (Potenza) in 1962; Pino Valente was born in Napoli in 1967. They live in Napoli. Active since 1995, they work mainly with new media. Their research investigates issues that arise in the relationship between art and science: the human body in its entirety (mental-intangible/corporeal-biological molecular), human perception and space-time, memory.
Claudia Losi
was born in Piacenza in 1971. She studied at the Bologna Fine Arts Academy and at the Faculty of Foreign Language and Literature. She participates in workshops and study courses in Italy and overseas. Her research focusses on the relationship of man to his surroundings, and between the individual and the community.
Valerio Rocco Orlando
born in Milan in 1978, graduated in Dramaturgy at the Catholic University of Milan followed by a Master’s Degree in Directing at Queen Mary University of London. He began his artistic career composing articulated installations, videos, films, photography and artists’ books that, balancing choral dialogue and intimist painting, present the relationship between the individual and the community, in order to explore and rethink the sense of belonging to contemporary society.
Made in Italy 3x1
ARTISTIC DIRECTION BY ANTONIO CAGGIANO
FEBRUARY-JULY 2015
Nuovissimo
Rassegna sul Cinema Latinoamericano Contemporaneo
a cura di José Gatti e Suzy Capó
Quali novità si prospettano nel cinema latinoamericano? Oggi assistiamo ad un vero e proprio boom di film provenienti dall’America Latina con nuovi registi alla ribalta nei festival internazionali, film che ottengono incassi elevati, autori che fanno notizia per la loro celebrità. Ma la cosa forse più sorprendente rispetto al riconoscimento internazionale è come il cinema latinoamericano sia riuscito a (ri)conquistare il pubblico nazionale, che dagli anni Ottanta si sottraeva ai film “di casa”. Che cosa è successo? Che cosa si è modificato nello scenario latinoamericano? I cambiamenti sono forse dovuti alla crescita economica (in parte effettiva, in parte esagerata) di cui hanno goduto i paesi dell’America Latina negli ultimi dieci anni? O piuttosto sono attribuibili al progresso tecnologico, che ha reso più accessibili e meno costosi i processi legati alla produzione cinematografica? Per non parlare delle nuove leggi, che dovrebbero tutelare le produzioni locali e garantirne l’accesso al pubblico. Sarebbe sciocco cercare una risposta unica a queste ipotesi, ma è possibile tuttavia individuare alcune possibilità.
Per rispondere ad alcune di queste problematiche l’Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio presenta una rassegna sul cinema latinoamericano contemporaneo che prevede 8 appuntamenti con un totale di 16 proiezioni e che sarà accompagnata da una serie di incontri, tavole rotonde e osservatori critici.
Mozart, così fan tutti
Following the season, Tradizione ed individualità (Tradition and Individuality), the musical programme at Dello Scompiglio continues from November to June with a project centred around the figure of Mozart. An extraordinary artist and the most universal of musicians, his huge popularity has caused him to be portrayed always as an instinctive genius, infantile and completely closed in his own world. Certainly he was irreverent but in a primitive way. This methodical view, contradictory in its very existence, shows an uncomfortably non-conformist character who lived according to the ideals of freedom and equality; anticlerical, yet with a strong sense of the sacred nature of life; libertarian but with a strong aversion to war. Mozart was an artist who could teach us about modernity; a lesson that has made him more and more current and taught the audience to listen to his music with more awareness and maturity.
Mozart, così fan tutti, which is no more than a play on words of the title of the last of the three Italian operas by the Salzburg composer, is a series in which, in the spirit of mixing it up, many artists from different backgrounds are invited to discuss the themes that characterized the personal and cultural path of Mozart.
The programme of events follows three lines: the works of Mozart, works of composers of different periods dedicated to Mozart and “experiments” by artists from different musical fields who compare themselves to the sound landscape of Mozart, are inspired by the principles that have accompanied Mozart in his life, and, as is the custom at Scompiglio, seek to go beyond the rigid patterns of traditional categories. (Antonio Caggiano)
In Relazione (In Relation)
On Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 April, In Relazione (In Relation) will open at Dello Scompiglio. A meandering, interdisciplinary promenade that winds through the indoor and outdoor spaces of Scompiglio, the trail, centred on interpersonal dynamics, leads to unusual places and views with intimate installations, places of reflection, original social relations and a photographic exhibition.
Solitudine da Camera (Chamber Solitude)
Installations by Cecilia Bertoni, Claire Guerrier with Carl G. Beukman
A long path of exchanges, contrast and formal realisation, begun in 2011 with Camera #1 in the tank room and continued in 2012 with Camera #2 between the columns, concludes with Camera #3 in a small hut immersed in the nature of the estate.
Camera #3 (Chamber #3)
2014
A little metato (a hut for storing agricultural tools), deep in the natural countryside of the estate, becomes a bedroom into which the visitor is invited to immerse themselves in an allegorical prison to distance themselves from daily life and enter a world filled with the references, evocations, memories, fears and dreams of two women enclosed within their own solitude. Each one interprets this solitude according to her own character and experience, giving life to a prison that should be interpreted not as an element of control or punishment, but rather as the realisation of a corner in which to take refuge from the past, accept the present and long for the future. A proliferation of elements in Cecilia Bertoni and the fragmentation of Claire Guerrier’s own body become as much an intimate as explicit catharsis of their own obsessions, fears, memories and longings.
Camera #1 (Chamber #1)
2011
2 women - 2 solitudes, intertwined memories of the past, longings for the future, in fragments that become the furniture of a small room. Using sounds and noises, Carl G. Beukman creates another dimension in the space.
Camera #2 (Chamber #2)
2012
In Camera #2 the visitor can enter and experience a room basted with the fragmentary signs and traces of two women with their intimate voices and solitude. The curiosity of the visitor becomes the deciding instrument for uncovering and revealing what is hidden in the layers of the room and participating in the contrast between the two identities and their means of relating to one another. Using the voices of the artists, the sounds and noises of Carl G. Beukman create contrast sharply with the surrounding sounds, leaving the visitor with the power to turn them on or turn them off.
The book, Solitudine da Camera #1, #2, #3, by Cecilia Bertoni,tells the story of the path created by the three artists, through drawings, photographs and texts, and with critical texts by Andrea Domesle and Angel Moya Garcia. It is available at the bookshop of the SPE.
Sedeo Ergo Sum - Siedo Dunque Sono (Sedeo Ergo Sum – I sit, therefore I am)
WORKS BY CATERINA PECCHIOLI
Caterina Pecchioli invites the spectator onto a pathway through the indoor and outdoor spaces of the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio where, through a series of interdisciplinary works of sculpture, photography and installation the spectator is introduced to a world of interpersonal dynamics. The theme of the different works is the chair used as a symbol of social relationships. The show uses the nature of this object and the position of the body in relation to it, to stimulate greater awareness of relational dynamics and how they are influenced by minimal physical and spatial changes. The works include the interactive installation Coreografia Sociale (Social Choreography), the sculpture Sedia-Fossile, Dinosediasauro (Seat-Fossils, Dinochairsaurus) in the park and the photographic exhibition Sedeo Ergo Sum, which gives its name to the exhibition trail.
In sosta (In Pause)
BY FERNANDO MARQUES PENTEADO
The work, which is a part of the permanent installations in the external spaces of the Dello Scompiglio estate, involved many collaborators within Dello Scompiglio, through embroidery, the construction of the objects and the design of the garden around the theme of pause. A sharing space that challenges the authorship of the work, that revolves around the form of the bench as an archetype of pause for reflection, meeting and knowledge of oneself. The Brazilian artist expresses a moment of meditation in which the visitor is invited to linger, pause for a while, bide their time, stop and reflect, look, observe, read and feel.
Alma lejanas Alma de distancia
Festival of Latin American Video Art
curated by Fabrizio Pizzuto and Angel Moya Garcia
1 FEBRUARY - 6 APRIL 2014
Starting with the work, Beloved, by César Meneghetti, which focuses on roots, we take a journey with a view over Latin America, through a series of video art, in total 11 events with the participation of 6 Latin American artists, some of whom are resident in Europe and 5 organisations dedicated to overseas video art, some based in Europe, others in South America.
The festival, Almas lejanas/Almas de distância however, is not focussed on nostalgia but on a sense of belonging. The reasons for video for the artists and the organisations are various and concerned with displaying a panoramic view of the different ways to make video images. Relocation creates disorientation but also repositioning, culture that becomes enriched, points of view that examine, the overlapping of visual culture. It involves the objectification of distance, the eye of the soul (as every soul is far away, an intangible breath). Something that is felt, that comes from the earth, from birth and blends into knowledge. Something that leaves a trace, that is sometimes unconsciously rejected. A state of the soul that cannot be avoided, that irreparably marks who we are. A signal-vision that transforms into perception. Belonging.
Tradizione e individualità
CURATED BY Francesca Breschi AND Antonio Caggiano
27 JANUARY - 27 APRIL 2013
Trilogy of Absence
by Cecilia Bertoni
2013
Trilogy of Absence comprises of three performances that interact and engage with the theme of losing and winning, its relationship with time and in all its dynamics, in and out of reality.
The question is addressed from different perspectives and develops in various spaces and places, indoor and outdoor, of the Tenuta Dello Scompiglio.
In/Out
14 JUNE - 27 SEPTEMBER 2013
Bluwoods
21 febRUARY - 30 marCH 2013
Portali Dello Scompiglio #1
John Cage: 4’33” Lessons in Fungi
june - december 2012
Incontri d'Armonia
