San Marino artist Martina Conti investigates relationships between art, citizenship and politics in exhibition at MA*GA Gallarate

From June 23 to September 15, 2019, MA*GA in Gallarate(VA) is hosting an exhibition by Martina Conti (San Marino, 1984), entitled Exercises for a Polluted Mind. The initiative is part of the Galleria Nazionale San Marino project that the artist created for the Republic of San Marino ’s pavilion at the 58th Venice Art Biennale, hosted until November 24 at Palazzo Bollani, curated by Emma Zanella and Alessandro Castiglioni (and where Martina Conti was called to represent her country).

Martina Conti, a native of San Marino, was selected from a group of San Marino authors who participated in the call, established by the Galleria Nazionale San Marino, to represent the Republic of the Titan at the Biennale. Martina Conti’s work is based on a series of physical exercises between choreography and somatic techniques, documented through photographs, audio and video material, called Exercises for a Polluted Mind, dedicated to the members of the Great and General Council, the single-chamber parliament of the Republic of San Marino. This art project thus directly enters inside the spaces, bodies and times of politics. In fact, the sessions were held inside the Sala del Consiglio in San Marino’s Palazzo Pubblico, prior to the parliamentary work sessions, with a group of councilors from different political backgrounds agreeing to take part in the process.

This assemblage of individual bodies represents at the same time, physically and metaphorically, the body politic, and therefore one of the possible social bodies, and as such capable of reflecting the meaning of being together.

As the artist writes, “With this research I would like to investigate the relationship between artist/citizen and the political dimension. The intervention I would like to propose aims to invite the political class to be personally and physically involved in an artistic project and thus to open up to a new dynamic of public involvement. My operational and artistic focus, the tool I work with, is the body. The project aims to share an artistic practice based on listening to the body so that it can also become a political doing, where working on the body is a political act.”

“The possibility of curating the National Gallery Project for the San Marino Pavilion,” say Emma Zanella and Alessandro Castiglioni, "is the result of a broader framework agreement between the two institutions and therefore an opportunity to give an even more international impetus to the activities of the MA*GA museum. This is also an opportunity to develop a research activity and give space to the work of Martina Conti whose work, we can already say, of a performative and participatory nature, is developed in the Biennale, at the San Marino National Gallery but also at the MA*GA Museum."

MA*GA’s summer exhibition season still sees the presence of Ricola, as the Museum’s institutional partner, in support of the initiatives organized by the Gallaratese institution.

The Ricola-branded free admission days continue: on Sunday, June 23, the first Sunday of the exhibition opening, the Swiss company will offer admission to all visitors and welcome them with a tasting of its beneficial herbal teas at the MA*GA bar starting at 3 p.m. From 4 to 6 p.m., the curators will accompany the public on a tour of the exhibition.

Martina Conti devotes her research to the relationships between body and space from both a physical and symbolic perspective. She studied contemporary dance in London at Trinity Laban and later performance at Central Saint Martins. Institutions that have exhibited her work include the Villa Croce Museum, Genoa; Viafarini, Milan; Spike Island, Bristol; XIV Mediterranean Biennial, Skopje; WEYA, Nottingham. He lives and works in San Marino.

For all information you can call +39 0331 706011, send an email to info@museomaga.itvisitare or the official website of the MA*GA Museum.

San Marino artist Martina Conti investigates relationships between art, citizenship and politics in exhibition at MA*GA Gallarate

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