Prospettiva Arte Contemporanea

A selection of Fondazione Fiera Milano’s art collection is going on display to the public for the first time ever in association with Intesa Sanpaolo and the Gallerie d’Italia; the collection has been built up since 2012 with acquisitions made during miart, Milan’s international modern and contemporary art fair. Every year, a different panel of international museum directors and curators is invited to select artworks on display at the fair with a view to expanding Fondazione Fiera Milano’s collection.

The Prospettiva Arte Contemporanea exhibition provides an insight into the Italian and international art scene through works by several generations of artists active from the second half of the 20th century up to the present.
Representing different artistic expressions, the 43 pieces range from painting to sculpture, film to photography, illustrations to installations; together they form a pathway crossed by various themes: the relationship between the natural and cultural imagination, the mechanisms of vision and representation, the tension between abstraction and figuration, between words and gestures, space and architecture.

A closer look at the artists in the exhibition

The immersive installation by Austrian artists Hans Schabus (1970) creates an ambiguous narrative space where objects from different times and places come together; the iconic polyurethane nature carpet by Piero Gilardi (1942) shares Schabus’s imaginative dimension while investigating the relationship between man, nature and technology.
The natural world is central to the work of German artist Jochen Lempert (1958), who challenges the authenticity of scientific documents by taking photographs filled with the ambiguity between actual data and the artificial. His reflections on the relations between vision and knowledge are echoed in disorienting portraits and still lifes by German artist Annette Kelm (1975), who, like Norwegian photographer Torbjørn Rødland (1970), explores the conventions of photographic portraits and commercial stagings. A similarly conceptual approach to the language of photography lies at the heart of the work of Elad Lassry (Israel, 1977), while British artist John Stezaker’s (1949) surreal collages dissect and reassemble film and advertising imagery.

Inspired by geometrical constructivist compositions, Barbara Kasten (Chicago, 1936) uses photography to transform the dimensions of sculpture along with Giuseppe Gabellone (1973), his sculptures created solely as the subject of photographs, and John Divola (Los Angeles, 1949), who documents abandoned living spaces. Photographs from the “I travestiti” series shot by Lisetta Carmi (1924) in Genoa in 1965 round off this exploration of the medium, portraying the right to beauty and the expression of sexual identity.

The language of the abstract is another theme of the exhibition, as explored in digitally manipulated fluid images by Paul Thorel (London, 1956), delicate ceramic surfaces by Nick Mauss (1980) and the sparse style of watercolours by German artist Michael Krebber (1954).

A multitude of different interpretations of the figurative arts is echoed in everyday objects by the Swiss artist Nicolas Party (1980) – a blend of pop colours and metaphysical forms –, religious subjects by Alessandro Pessoli (1963), threatening landscapes by Monica Bonvicini (1965), mysterious carnivalesque figures by German artist Ulla von Brandenburg (1974) and the sculptural portraits of great 20th-century thinkers turned into eccentric vases by Polish artist Goshka Macuga (1967). The most intimate dimension of drawing can be found in intense, archaic-looking female faces by Marisa Merz (1926) and vibrant anthropomorphic portraits in red biro by Diego Perrone (1970). Formal, historical and political interpretations of the human figure are the subject of silhouette montages by Austrian artist Kiki Kogelnik (1935-1997), disturbing alterations to Biedermeier portraits by Markus Schinwald (1973) and the partially erased faces of famous figures by Stefano Arienti (1961), revealing unseen features.

An exploration of signs, languages and production techniques is reflected in works by artists including Irma Blank (1934), Andrea Büttner (1972), Dadamaino (1930-2004) and Matt Mullican (1951); with different poetic styles, they explore the relationships between words and images, painting and language, the realm of the rational and the realm of the body.

The language of sculpture is examined throughout the exhibition in pieces by artists seeking meanings in materials, space and their relationship with architecture. Geometric works by Lisa Dalfino (1987) and Sacha Kanah (1981) view space as lightness and transparency, while Gregor Schneider (1969) explores its psychological implications by creating doppelgängers who work their way into our deepest memories. While Paolo Icaro (1936) sculpts bronze artworks that provide an organic response to architectural history, June Crespo (1982) assembles architectural elements in concrete, and Luca Monterastelli (1983) forges a reflection on the monumental and ideological dimension of modernism from the same material. Delicate bas-reliefs in unfired clay by Anna-Bella Papp (1988) translate sculpture into an intimate experience, while Salvatore Arancio (1974) explores scientific and grotesque representations of nature in his ceramics. Finally, Chiara Camoni (1974) and Diego Marcon (1985) bring their reflections on space and materials to another dimension – time – examining how forms appear and disappear, the former in ceramic interpretations and the latter in his films.