Ti Bergamo: at GAMeC the exhibition that uses art to tell the story of the Covid epidemic in Bergamo

From Oct. 1, 2020 to Feb. 14, 2021, GAMeC in Bergamo is hosting the exhibition Ti Bergamo, which aims to be a reflection on the sense of community. The exhibition takes its title from the drawing made and donated to the museum by Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi to support the fundraising campaign for thePapa Giovanni XXIII Hospital that GAMeC promoted through its channels during the city’s health emergency.

Through artworks and productions from below, photographic images, films, gestures and thoughts of those authors who, at different times (and particularly recently) have interacted with the Bergamo community, thus becoming to become part of it, the project, the presentation reads, “restores the emotional short-circuit triggered by the convergence of dramatic events and gestures of solidarity that arose during the most acute phase of the crisis, adopting a point of view that turns its gaze from the present to the past, in order to imagine the future.”

The first section of the exhibition presents a series of initiatives related to the print medium and includes a collection of editions of the newspaper L’Eco di Bergamo alongside drawings on the pandemic made by Dan Perjovschi, including the group designed for GAMeC, which was relaunched on social media at MoMA New York during the first lockdown. Completing the section are recent cartoons by renowned Bergamo-based cartoonist Bruno Bozzetto; illustrator Emiliano Ponzi ’s project for The Washington Post, which recounts the daily life of a quarantined Milanese; a report by Davide Agazzi, a Bergamonews journalist, aired last April on Rai 2 as part of the Mizar program; and the docufilm Noi, Bergamo. Architecture of a Rebirth, made by cultural startup Squareworld Studio, thanks to the involvement of twelve young artists and creatives.

The second section involves a number of Bergamo artists from different generations, including Tea Andreoletti, Filippo Berta, Mariella Bettineschi, Mario Cresci, Gianriccardo Piccoli and Andrea Mastrovito, who presents his latest film I Am Not Legend, dedicated to his hometown and destined for the collection of the Museo del Novecento e del Contemporaneo at Palazzo Fabroni in Pistoia following the awarding of the sixth edition of theItalian Council.

Thanks to a collaboration with the Museum of Bergamo Stories, the section also hosts the 16 images made available by theSestini Photographic Archive for UNOSCATTOXLARICERCA. Bergamo through the eyes of its photographers, a project that saw the participation of 70 photographers from Bergamo to fund theMario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research.

One room of the museum is entirely dedicated to Radio GAMeC, the project born on the Gallery’s socials during the health emergency. In the exhibition it will be possible to listen again to the podcasts of the 66 episodes produced, with Italian and international voices from the most diverse fields of culture, research, entertainment and sports, and to view through a QR code the recordings of the five appointments of Radio GAMeC Real Live, live meetings in the museum courtyard that have seen artists such as Nic Cester & The Milano Elettrica, Andrea Pennacchi with Giorgio Gobbo, Cristiano Godano, Alessandro Sciarroni and Virgilio Sieni perform on the MASBEDO Videomobile. There will also be visual contributions made by some of the artists who participated in the project, Jeremy Deller, Simone Fattal, Goldschmied & Chiari, Thomas Hirschhorn, Michael Höpfner, Ragnar Kjartansson, Julian Rosefeldt, Olimpia Zagnoli and Adrian Paci, who chose to collect here the 26 posters of the Poster Quotidiano initiative, conceived with Iva Lulashi and Fabio Roncato and curated by Giuseppe Frangi and Rischa Paterlini, in support of the Fondazione Progetto Arca Onlus.

The artistic duo MASBEDO also presents two new works specially produced by GAMeC and In Between Art Film, the film production company founded by Beatrice Bulgari that investigates the boundaries between contemporary art, cinema and video art. The artists’ project draws inspiration from Pellizza da Volpedo’s masterpiece, Ricordo di un dolore (Portrait of Santina Negri), part of theAccademia Carrara’s collection. The oil on canvas, depicting a young woman at the moment she learns the tragic news of a bereavement, becomes an emblematic image of personal suffering, which enters into a dialogue with MASBEDO’s video, also titled Ricordo di un dolore (Memory of a Grief): the silent ascent of a man to the summit of Presolana, with the reproduction of the painting on his shoulders, recounts the loneliness of a moment of grief and its sublimation. The canvas and the action bring together and express the communion between individual pain and the collective pain of a valley and the city.

The large video projection echoes the documentary Sharing a Memory, which presents the operation that involved Bergamo and the municipalities of the Seriana Valley during the summer, in which numerous posters depicting Pellizza da Volpedo’s painting were put up thanks to the involvement of the people the artists met.

A large installation collects the more than 200 photographs of the 100 Photographers for Bergamo initiative, a project launched last March by the community magazine Perimetro and developed in collaboration with theLinke Cultural Association and the contribution of the non-profit organization Liveinslums, to fund the Intensive Care and Intensive Care Units of thePapa Giovanni XXIII Hospital.

The operation involved numerous Italian and international photographers, including Jacopo Benassi, Francesco Jodice, Delfino Sisto Legnani, Giovanna Silva, Oliviero Toscani and many others.

Accompanying the photo exhibition is a recording of the concert by Israeli singer Noa held in April thanks to the collaboration between Bergamo Jazz Festival, organized by Fondazione Teatro Donizetti, and I-Jazz to support the city’s hospital.

The different sections house some works from the GAMeC Collection related to the city of Bergamo, by authors such as Gabriele Basilico, Alberto Garutti, Luca Vitone, but also Orfeo Locatelli, Trento Longaretti and Alberto Vitali. The rooms of the Gallery also host the works of some creative artists who have been protagonists or spokesmen for acts of generosity and social reflection: Susanna Alberti, Chiara Bigatti / Gruppo Publionda, Camilla Marinoni, Officina Tantemani, Franco Rivolli, Alessandro Adelio Rossi (for Bergamo Sottosuolo). Also on display is the video made by Confartigianato Bergamo on the occasion of the opening of the field hospital at the Fair.

A room of the museum, transformed into a classroom, will give new life to desks decommissioned by schools in recent months. A choice at once metaphorical and concrete, aimed at telling the story of GAMeC as a place of lifelong learning. In fact, the classroom will welcome classes from the territory, inviting teachers to appropriate the works on display to decline them on the contents of their own disciplines, independently or with the support of the museum’s Educational Services. In addition, every Tuesday, the Great Hall will host Art History classes taught by museum educators and other History classes offered by the Dalmine Foundation, which this year collaborated with the museum in designing the proposals aimed at schools.

On display inside the room are videos from the REC project, the fundraising campaign to support access to online education promoted by AMACI - Associazione dei Musei d’Arte Contemporanea Italiani and Sky Arte in collaboration with Save the Children and Sanità di Frontiera: 35 artist cameos interspersed with the voices and faces of 18 AMACI museum directors engaged in reading the text of Art. 34 of the Italian Constitution on the Right to Education.

Lastly, GAMeC’s collaboration with Cesvi, the Bergamo-based non-profit organization committed in Italy and around the world to supporting the most vulnerable populations in the promotion of human rights and sustainable development and which, for the Coronavirus emergency, has distinguished itself by launching an important program in the health, social and economic spheres in our area.

On the occasion of the exhibition, thanks to the contribution of Santini Maglificio Sportivo, a T-shirt depicting Dan Perjovschi’s Ti Bergamo design (pictured) was produced. Half of the proceeds raised from the sale will be donated to Cesvi to help fund an important project dedicated to child protection in Bergamo, which includes the activation of school and play-recreational activities; positive parenting courses; training courses for professionals dealing with childhood; and psychological support paths for children. The other half will go to cover the costs of the exhibition, whose admission will remain free for all months it is open.

The exhibition is supported by Banca Galileo.

For all information you can visit the official website of GAMec.

Ti Bergamo: at GAMeC the exhibition that uses art to tell the story of the Covid epidemic in Bergamo

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