MO.CO.PANACÉE | Montpellier
8 June – 18 August, 2019
Georges Candilis, Alexis Josic, Shadrach Woods, Bochum University Competition, 1962 Shadrach Woods architectural records and papers, 1923-1973, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University
PLANNED/UNPLANNED, BUILT/UN-BUILT
In this section, the mapping of theoretical research presents artistic, urban planning and architectural research all together. Within the contemporary vision, the rationalist utopia of the street as an element aimed at imposing order onto the urban space gives way to more recent verticalisation and superelevation projects, underpasses or futuristic crossings in contrast with the pre-existing built space. The architectural timeline Rethinking the City aims at showcasing more than a hundred years’ worth of architectural theories and projects linked to the theme of the street in the space of a few dozen metres. This reflection is accompanied by a parallel chronological analysis of the production of artworks linked to the concept of street – a new commission entrusted to Liu Qingyuan – and a selection of artworks that delve into the deepest meanings of the street in the contemporary world.
Lin Yilin, Safely Manoeuvre across Linhe Road, 1995, Courtesy the Artist
WALK, PLAY AND GETTING LOST…
Contemporary artists have kept focusing on the street as the favoured setting for their interventions. From the most ordinary actions – such as walking – to the most complex dynamics – such as various forms of play –, urban paths have been the object of an all-around exploration. Artistic research has also studied the sense of bewilderment inherent in the urban context. In this sense, artistic creation builds and reconquers spaces of expression, relation and contact. While artists take over the urban context, daily life osmotically seeps into their work through the inclusion of new materials, gestures, attitudes, themes and approaches.
Chto Delat, Angry Sandwich People, 2006, Courtesy the Artists and KOW Berlin
RESISTANCE, PROTEST, OCCUPY, MANIFEST, FEMINISM AND THE CARNEVALESQUE…
This dedicated section gathers canvases and paintings, posters and bills, sculptures and installations, videos and performances so as to provide a complete overview of the artistic research conducted on this theme. The political phenomena whose natural setting is the street find expression through resistance, protests, the recent Occupy movement, feminist demonstrations and a carnivalesque approach to the overturning of power. Historically speaking, the street has witnessed the tensions that have characterised society at different levels, thereby turning it into an arena for very diverse protest movements. The exhibition showcases the artistic actions and studies carried out since the late ‘90s, reprising the discourse initiated in the ‘60s and ‘70s by the generation of artists and exponents of culture who took to the streets in order to share a new line of thinking and innovative creative models.
Halil Altindere, MOBESE - Gold Camera, 2011, Courtesy the Artist and PILOT Gallery, Istanbul / Photo murat-german 2011
EAT, WORK AND EXCHANGE, HOME/HOMELESS…
The street is the setting of good part of everyday life. Multiple functions and identities are concentrated in this place, which is often both the object and the subject of artistic interventions: from work to commerce, from street food to the need of a house. By operating at the crossroads of public and private life as well as inside and outside spaces, artists and architects have also interpreted the street as an extension of domestic life. The works contained in this section show the more hidden side of the street, that which we don’t want to see and hide from; they do not recount what we would like the street to be or what it should represent, but rather show us what we come across in our daily itinerary.
Surasi Kusolwong, Emotional Machine (VW with Francis Picabia), 2000-2004, Courtesy of the Artist, Photo: Daniel Moulinet
INNOVATION, LIMITATION AND FREEDOM
So as to enable the street to fulfil its new functions, solutions characterised by and increasingly advanced design are to be devised; this phenomenon, which on one hand favours technological development, can also lead to limitations on personal and collective freedom. This section is conceived as a magnifying glass aimed at showing some aspects of the street in greater detail: from the large infrastructures that define the urban landscape through the small pieces of furniture that enable us to sit down and share collective spaces up to the new technologies that try to make us feel safer, faster and more connected.
Kimsoojia, A Beggar Woman – Lagos, 2001, Courtesy the Artist and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan
IMMIGRATION, MINORITIES, DIVERSITY, LOVE AND LIVING TOGETHER
In contemporary society, the street plays a fundamental role in enabling the community to develop a shared identity and conscience, studying the line between public and private and delving into pressing issues such as immigration, minorities, diversity, interpersonal relationships and peaceful coexistence. All tensions are taken to the extreme in the street, which has enabled it to become a permanent laboratory where the limits and features of the socalled minorities are redefined. The street is navigated, frequented and experienced by communities, and moulded by forces, such as globalisation, which have put marginalised subjects at the heart of public discourse. The wish for communality that characterises our daily life is a response to the complexity and harshness of our time.
Simon Fujiwara, New Pompidou, 2014, Courtesy the Artist
STREET AS MUSEUM, MUSEUM AS STREET
In the last decades, museums have turned into open institutions by incorporating features of the street and hosting experiences, works and studies born from the city or conceived specifically for urban design. The new identity of museum-street, which developed hand in hand with the transformation of the street into a museum, has made the identification of museums with places entrusted with the preservation of the collective cultural heritage ever more labile. Today, museums are open spaces for sharing where events leading to constantly changing processes take place and artworks are no longer featured. Contemporary open museums stem from the questioning of their institutional prerogatives, such as the principle of authority, the regulatory function, the idea of canon and claims of neutrality. This reflection has led to a more mindful understanding of the limits and contradictions of museums based on dialogue with the audience and the questioning of shared meanings.
Galleries 3 e 4
curated by Hou Hanru and the curatorial team of MAXXI
The street as a place of sharing and innovation, the principal laboratory for artists, architects and creatives.
More than 140 artists and over 200 works to compose the multicultural, polyglot, colorful, scary, stimulating, deafening story of the streets of the whole world, the real great laboratory for discussion, creation, comparison, where the contemporary era is invented
Works of art, architectural projects, photographs, performances, site-specific interventions and videos welcome visitors to a sequence of galleries that form a street dozens of metres long.
The exhibition is organised based on themes – public actions, daily life, politics, the community, innovation, the role of the institution – fundamental for understanding the new functions and identity of the modern-day street.
Starting from the belief that this space is the place where the world is created, it is analysed as a manifesto of contemporary life, a scenario, and a privileged point of view, a landscape in which the creative community and citizens give life to a new community and a new world of urban creativity.
The street is analysed as a continuously mutating manifesto of contemporary life, an element of connection but also of rupture, the setting for everyday experiences such as street festivals, improvised cinema or street food.
THE ARTISTS
Adel Abdessemed, Allora & Calzadilla, Halil Altindere, Francis Alÿs, Iván Argote, Marcela Armas, Rosa Barba, Yael Bartana, Eric Baudelaire, Boamistura, Monica Bonvicini, Botto&Bruno, Andrea Bowers, Mark Bradford, Cao Fei, Chim↑Pom, Martin Creed, Daniel Crooks, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Nemanja Cvijanović, Jonathas de Andrade, Chto Delat, Jeremy Deller, Sam Durant, Jimmie Durham, Memed Erdener – Extrastruggle, Fang Lu, Flavio Favelli, Simon Fujiwara, Jean-Baptiste Ganne, Alberto Garutti, Kendell Geers, David Hammons, Sharon Hayes, Ha Za Vu Zu, He He, Jeppe Hein, Jörg Herold, Thomas Hirschhorn, Hiwa K, Huang Weikai, Alfredo Jaar, Leopold Kessler, Kim Sora, Kimsooja, Barbara Kruger, Mark Lewis, Li Binyuan, Glenn Ligon, Li Liao, Lin Yilin, Liu Qingyuan, Cinthia Marcelle, Jill Magid, Map Office, Minouk Lim, Momoyo Kaijima, Carsten Nicolai, Ahmet Öğüt, OHT (Office for a Human Theatre), Pak Sheung Chuen (Tozer Pak), The Propeller Group, Navin Rawanchaikul, Pedro Reyes, Robin Rhode, Andrea Salvino, Moe Satt, Anna Scalfi, Marinella Senatore, Chen Shaoxiong, Shen Yuan, Santiago Sierra and Jorge Galindo, Adnan Softić, Stalker, Sun Yuan /Peng Yu, Koki Tanaka, Hsieh Tehching, Eugenio Tibaldi, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Sissel Tolaas, Patrick Tuttofuoco, Vatamanu & Tudor, Xijing Men, Yang Jiechang, Yang Zhenzhong, Raphaël Zarka, Zhao Zhao, Zhou Tao, Zhu Jia, Artur Żmijewski, Università la Sapienza.
CARS BY ARTISTS. Immagini di vetture progettate da artisti
Adel Abdessemed, Amabouz Taturo, Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan, Alain Bublex, Richard Buckminster Fuller, Cao Fei, César, Wim Delvoye, Jimmie Durham, Olafur Eliasson, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Kendell Geers, Piero Golia, Yngve Holen, Surasi Kusolwong, Bertrand Lavier, Jean-Luc Moulène, Ichwan Noor, Julian Opie, Gabriel Orozco, Lucy + Jorge Orta, Damián Ortega, Nam June Paik, Hung-Chih, Paola Pivi, Michael Rakowitz, Navin Rawanchaikul, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Shen Yuan, Roman Signer, Simon Starling, Vedovamazzei, Xavier Veilhan, Andy Warhol, Richard Wilson, Erwin Wurm, Sislej Xhafa, Yin Xiuzhen.
RETHINKING THE CITY
Archigram, Archizoom Associati, Atelier Bow Wow, John Randel, Jr., A Map of the city of New York by the commissioners appointed by an act of the legislature passed April 3rd 1807 (commonly known as the Commissioners’ Plan), 1811, Ludwig Karl Hilberseimer, Le Corbusier, Farzin Lotfi-Jam & Mark Wasiuta, Ludovico Quaroni, Mario Ridolfi, Alice and Peter Smithson, seated in an unidentified street, 1949–1956, Georges Candilis, Alexis Josic, Shadrach Woods, Superstudio, Ugo La Pietra, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour, SITE (James Wines), Vito Acconci (Acconci Studio), Steven Holl, Mirko Zardini.
Sezioni di mostra
MAPPING
INTERVENTIONS
STREET POLITICS
EVERYDAY LIFE
GOOD DESIGN
COMMUNITY
OPEN INSTITUTIONS
Urban Projects
Alfredo Jaar
Liu Qingyuan
Jeremy Deller
contenuti correlati
RASSEGNA DI STREET FOOD
Accanto alla mostra, come suo naturale prolungamento, la piazza del museo ospita una rassegna di street food a rappresentare la varietà gastronomica proveniente da diversi angoli di Italia e del mondo.
Cataloghi della mostra
Exhibition catalogue 2018
THE STREET. WHERE THE WORLD IS MADE