Tuesday 25 May 2021, 18.30 hours
Performing The Archives. Alberto Boatto Critique as Literature.
Three meetings to retrace the fundamental traits of the career of the great critic and writer, protagonist of the exhibition. A direct witness of the radical transformations in contemporary artistic practices, Boatto has always entrusted writing with a fundamental role, aiming to identify the poetic universe of the artists and the specific qualities of the works and at the same time to bring out their vital connections to a wider historical and theoretical background.
The essential quality of Boatto's writing is an enveloping and unpredictable movement that embraces images and ideas while maintaining its own stubborn independence. His was in fact a "gaze from the outside", the gaze of both the shipwrecked and the space explorer, that is, of one who observes the world from an external, solitary, remote point and grasps a new and surprising physiognomy. Hence the choice of a stubbornly independent position, of an outdatedness assumed with pride, especially in the last period of activity, when his essays, now unrelated to contingent reasons, make an inventive and literary component even more sensitive.
Introduce
Julia Pedace Head of MAXXI Art Archives
Speakers
Massimo Carboni philosopher
Elizabeth Rasy writer and essayist
Moderator
Stefano Nails curator of the exhibition
Wednesday 26 May 2021, 18.30pm
Memories of the future What is a museum today?
Precisely starting from the question of what a museum is today, in the book Memories of the future Evelina Christillin and Christian Greco question the role of the institution within contemporary society. Museum collections are often perceived as static entities, hidden in warehouses or trapped inside closed display cases. In reality, the interaction between visitors, the objects and the institutions that bought, collected, studied and exhibited them, over time have generated a complex network of relationships and a strong influence on civil society. Culture therefore binds man to his neighbor by creating a common space of experiences, expectations and actions, but also connects the past to the present, shaping and keeping the founding memories current, as well as including the images and stories of another time within the horizon of the present. Thus hope and memory are generated: this aspect of culture is at the basis of the very concept of museum.
Speakers
Christian Greco Director of the Egyptian Museum of Turin
Dario Pappalardo journalist of the Republic
Bartholomew Pietromarchi MAXXI Art Director
Thursday 27 May 2021, 18:30 – 19:30
Six masterful stories crossed by the animal presence
The stories of Francesca Marciano, writer and screenwriter whose books are published in numerous countries, delve into the most hidden and vulnerable corners of the lives of characters apparently distant from us and very far from each other. With clear, cinematic and expert writing, Marciano leads them, within a handful of pages, to question all their certainties, to dive into unexpected adventures, to face crucial decisions.
These six masterful stories, released in the United States in 2020 for Pantheon and translated into Italian by the author herself, are crossed, illuminated – sometimes haunted – by the presence of animals: trained snakes, ravenous seagulls, moose emerging from the woods, flocks of birds compose amazing shapes in the sky of Rome. And often it is precisely the encounter with the animal world, the wonder in the face of its ancestral strength, that triggers the spark that makes history flourish or explode.
Introduce
Giovanna Melandri President of the MAXXI Foundation
Speakers
Frances Marciano authoress
Annalena Benini journalist and writer
In collaboration with Mondadori
Cover image: A History for the Future. Ten years of MAXXI. Courtesy MAXXI Foundation, ph. Musacchio, Ianniello & Pasqualini
