Udine, Villa Manin becomes Pistoletto's Cittadellarte. Also created for the occasion is the Third Paradise

From May 25 to Dec. 31, 2024, Villa Manin di Passariano (Udine) will be transformed into a new stage of Cittadellarte: some of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s most important works, including Quadri specchianti, Venere degli stracci, Sfera di giornali, and the Metro cubo d’infinito, will be placed in dialogue with the works of artists from the region, Italy and abroad, invited to confront through their own work the instances of ethical and social transformation characteristic of Pistoletto’s work, on the occasion of the exhibition Terza Terra. Produced under the curatorship of Guido Comis, director of Villa Manin for Erpac (the regional agency for cultural heritage), in collaboration with Paolo Naldini director of Cittadellarte Foundation, the exhibition will bring to the former doge’s residence the authentic spirit of the citadel, a place where other artists confront the themes of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s work. The Third Paradise, which will be created in botanical form in the Villa’s park, will also be part of the exhibition itinerary.

“The presence of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s works at Villa Manin,” explains curator Guido Comis, “will be an opportunity to make Passariano a place of creation, confrontation, and experimentation on the model of Cittadellarte, but above all to involve many different souls of the region. The images of the works exhibited and created, but also the ideas that will emerge from the debates and meetings that will be held over the months will be collected in a publication. More than a traditional catalog, it will be a diary of a journey toward new opportunities to understand art and its role in society.” "The Mirror Paintings,“ Comis adds, ”will allow visitors to relate to the characters in the works and share their social situations, the Sphere of Newspapers will introduce the themes of politics and communication, and the Venus of Rags will represent the trait d’union with fashion."

"The Third Paradise," writes Michelangelo Pistoletto, “is the fusion of the first and second paradises. The first is the one in which human beings were totally integrated into nature. The second is the artificial paradise, developed by human intelligence to the global dimensions reached today with science and technology. The Third Paradigm is the third stage of humankind, which is realized in the balanced connection between artifice and nature; it is the transition to an unprecedented stage of planetary civilization, which is indispensable to ensure humankind’s survival. To this end, it is first of all necessary to re-form the principles and ethical behavior that guide common life.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by the Art of Demopraxia meeting program, which will involve public and private organizations, representatives of the productive and agricultural worlds, and representatives of institutions and culture. Villa Manin will be a place for the exercise of demopraxia, a neologism coined at Cittadellarte to define the process of social transformation through the direct involvement of all the associations and working groups of a territory. In particular, for the selection of artists called to dialogue with the themes and instances representative of Pistoletto’s works (including Ryts Monet, Caretto - Spain, Collective Robida, Luigi Coppola, Chiara Sgaramella, Noor Abed, Nico Angiuli, Tiziana and Isabella Pers, PLoT (2021 - Colette Lewis, Maryln Lennon, Elinor River, Michele Spanghero) Villa Manin collaborated with the curatorial committee of Unidee, Residency Program (Cittadellarte’s over twenty-year residency program) composed of Juan E. Sandoval, COL artist, Andy Abbot, U.K. curator, Alessandra Saviotti (curator) and Beatrice Catanzaro (artist), while for the program of meetings that will accompany the exhibition the collaboration was with Giacomo Bassmaji.

“The content of this proposed exhibition intertwines puts together in an organic and innovative way three layers of content each of great interest,” stressed director Paolo Naldini. “It starts with the works of Michelangelo Pistoletto as suggestions and indications of an artistic path of research from the 20th century to the present articulated in ”rooms“; then a selection of artistic practices that deal with the same themes or ”instances“ chosen on the territory of Friuli Venezia Giulia, through the network of relations of Erpac - Villa Manin and by the alumni network of Unidee Università of Ideas International Residency Program initiated at Cittadellarte in 1999; and finally a third layer of innovative devices of activation of the territory and its communities starting with the exhibition as an engine of engagement and possibility of transformation. In essence, the exhibition is grafted onto a collective work of construction, research and realization developed by Cittadellarte over the past twenty-five years, a quarter of a century of artistic production and research aimed at social transformation, now also recognized as one of the most urgent and significant contemporary art practices.”

The meetings organized around the exhibition itinerary will be held in atemporary arena made of ecological and recyclable materials in the villa’s central hall, designed and built by the students of ISIA Roma Design in Pordenone, under the guidance of their professors. “The collaborative work of the institute,” Comis concludes, “will embody the spirit promoted by Cittadellarte and of demopraxia itself: the arena will be the fruit of the confrontation of ideas and the manual contribution of a community, in this case of students and faculty.”

Photo by Simone De Luca.

Udine, Villa Manin becomes Pistoletto's Cittadellarte. Also created for the occasion is the Third Paradise

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