Manifest Intention. Drawing In All Its Forms
curated by Beatrice Merz with Marianna Vecellio
11 October 2014 – 25 January 2015
Never before has the fall season for the Castello di Rivoli been so full of events and important exhibitions. Among these is one of the most comprehensive the Museum has ever conceived, installed in both the spacious Manica Lunga and in the third-floor rooms of the Sabauda Residence. The event – Manifest Intention. Drawing In All Its Forms – focuses on drawing in its various forms and many modes of expression: from everyday and self-controlled practice to elements of analysis and creative outlets, from a means of communication to the need to express. The absolute protagonist of the exhibition, drawing also proposes a broader reflection on themes that over time have shaped the very concept of a museum and a collection, analyzing the medium’s context both as a sign of the work and as the work itself. Drawing, oftentimes hidden or kept in the shadows, is actually the common ground of artistic practice – be it a sketch, a project, or even a work that is finished and laden with messages.
The important Castello di Rivoli event is structured according to different concepts and itineraries: drawing as project practice; drawing as action practice – from performance to video; chiaroscuro, or rather, representation; outlines as paradox, or of infinity; diaries, the story of being an artist; drawing as a political practice; memory through quotation; the procedure paradox; world writing.
Beginning with a core of works by artists who in some way are tied to the Museum’s history – be they present in collections or part of some of the most significant events that have distinguished the Castello’s thirty years of activity – the investigation is broadened to include others who, in the recent past, have proven to be, with their works, decisive for newer generations of artists. Among these, just to name a few, there are key players of art history, like Pablo Picasso, Joan Mirò, Paul Klee, George Grosz, Giacomo Balla, Giorgio Morandi, Osvaldo Licini, and Renato Guttuso alongside contemporary exponents of great prestige such as William Kentridge, Matt Mullican, Francis Alÿs, Hanne Darboven, Matthew Barney (on display with his Drawing Restraint), and Robin Rhode who, for this event, will embark upon a new drawing performance. For Manifest Intention we also present a dialogue between written works and “drawn” ones, diaries or notebooks from Nan Goldin to Mario Merz, traces of Giovanni Anselmo and Giulio Paolini, quotations as memories by Elisabetta Benassi, graffiti by Keith Haring and Mircea Cantor; experimental works beyond drawing from Luciano Fabro to Lara Favaretto, protests by Shirin Neshat through Farsi writing, life stories narrated across wall constellations from Nedko Solakov to Peter Friedl, or projects for works (executed or not) by Chen Zhen as well as the famous explosions of Cai Guo-Qiang.
These are just a few of the over fifty artists on display as a small imaginary and selected sampling in an itinerary that combines signs, colors, fantasies, recollections, and the much more that could happen on a sheet of paper or a wall in a drawing on multiple dimensions.
With this event, the Castello di Rivoli also considers its own exhibition past, facing a topic that has never been treated in its spaces before. For Manifest Intention. Drawing In All Its Forms an exhaustive catalogue will be published by Corraini Edizioni, Mantua.
