The revolution is us. More than 150 works by the greatest contemporary artists in Piacenza.

In the new exhibition space of the Piacenza and Vigevano Foundation, XNL Piacenza Contemporanea, entirely dedicated to contemporary art, the exhibition La rivoluzione siamo noi will be on display from February 1 to May 24, 2020. Contemporary Italian Collecting.

Curated by Alberto Fiz and organized by the Fondazione di Piacenza e Vigevano, under the patronage of MiBACT, the Emilia Romagna region, the exhibition presents more than 150 works, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos and installations, by major contemporary artists. These include Piero Manzoni, Maurizio Cattelan, Marina Abramovic, Tomás Saraceno, Andy Warhol, Bill Viola, and Dan Flavin.

In the nearby Ricci Oddi Gallery of Modern Art, works by Ettore Spalletti, Wolfgang Laib, Fabio Mauri, Gregor Schneider, and Pietro Roccasalva will be on view to the public to complete the exhibition itinerary, in dialogue with masterpieces from the 19th and 20th centuries that are part of the famous collection of Giuseppe Ricci Oddi of Piacenza.

"The Revolution is Us “ analyzes the figure of the collector understood as a patron of the Third Millennium. But also as an ordinator of chaos and builder of a new projectuality where he himself becomes responsible. In this sense, the collector is not a mere buyer of works of art but with his choices takes a leading role in public life,” the curator declares. He adds, "The title of the exhibition takes its cue from Maurizio Cattelan’s installation La rivoluzione siamo noi where the artist, with narcissistic complacency, self-denigrates by hanging himself on a hook with the felt clothes of Joseph Beuys, who in 1972 made a work of the same title with a strong political imprint. The elements that the two works have in common are loneliness and taking an individual position, behaviors that, very often, also involve the collector."

The exhibition aims to propose the experience of private collecting, following a research that involves classic protagonists, such as Giorgio Morandi, Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, Fausto Melotti, Robert Morris, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Mario Merz, Keith Haring, Gerhard Richter, Daniel Buren, William Kentridge, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Giuseppe Penone (of the latter will be presented a site-specific intervention made especially for the exhibition), but also contemporary realities with artists such as Ghada Amer, Sislej Xhafa, Roberto Cuoghi, Urs Fischer, Zang Huan, Tobias Rehberger, Thomas Hirschhorn, Teresa Margolles, Zanele Muholi, based on a project accomplished in collaboration with collectors.

The phenomenon of collecting in all its aspects is thus investigated through the events of more than fifty years. There will be eight sections that will lead visitors to discover the works, artists and collecting: Complicity, Domestic Alterations, Turning the World Upside Down, Enigma, The Other Seen by Itself, Controlling Chaos, Explorations, Spaces of Monochrome. There will be portraits by Helmut Newton, by Thomas Struth, Pistoletto’s mirrored surface, Aldo Mondino’s Nougat Tower, Wim Delvoye’s floor buckets, Giulia Piscitelli’s latex dresses, the anthropomorphic Chair on which Armando Testa’s Italian flag appears, the leopard strolling over hundreds of capuccino cups in Paola Pivi’s photograph, Pino Pascali’s pipe cleaners. Also, Katja Novitskova’s hybridized bear, Sislej Xhafa ’s migrants’ boat formed by thousands of shoes, Marina Abramovic ’s famous performance made for the 1997 Venice Biennale, where the artist denounces, through a purification ritual, the horrors that were committed during the war in the Balkans; and much more, including Cattelan ’s portrait hanging on a hook with Joseph Beuys’ felt clothes.

The exhibition is part of the Piacenza 2020 program.

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Tickets with admission to both venues: full 12 euros, reduced 10 euros.

Image: Paul McCarthy, Bear sculpture (1992; installation, 90.3 x 229 cm; Bergamo, Alt Collection)

The revolution is us. More than 150 works by the greatest contemporary artists in Piacenza.

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