Lorenzo Giusti: "Forty years in the twentieth century is like four centuries in previous eras."

As part of the 2019 edition of Artissima, the Back to the future section, dedicated to rediscovering the pioneers of contemporary art, is turning 10. For its tenth anniversary, Back to the future will focus on the period 1960-1999, presenting monographic stands with works made during those years by seminal artists. What will we see in the exhibition? We talked about it with Lorenzo Giusti, director of GAMeC Galleria dArte Moderna e Contemporanea in Bergamo, who serves as coordinator of the Back to the future curatorial committee. The interview is curated by Ilaria Baratta.

Lorenzo Giusti. Ph. Credit Daniele Zedda

IB. This year marks the tenth anniversary of Back to the Future: in fact, it is since 2010 that this section aims to illustrate to the public the rediscovery of the pioneers of contemporary art. As a novelty in this edition, we wanted to make infographics about the artists who have participated in Back to the Future during these ten years, their careers, and art market trends. Can you give us some names of these artists, outlining the changes in the general taste of the market?
LG. We are talking about more than 200 artists from 2010 to the present, with very different profiles and careers from each other. Nearly 70 percent of these authors, the statistics tell us, after participating in BTTF have experienced growth in terms of sales or have been featured in institutional exhibitions. Of course, we are talking about processes that the section may have triggered or fostered and that still require the participation of different actors. One thing that Back to the Future certainly anticipated and then indulged was the great attention given in recent years to the recovery of significant female figures, including Birgit Jürgenssen, Maria Lai, Anna Maria Maiolino, Valie Export, Tomaso Binga, Lygia Pape, Letizia Battaglia, Irma Blank, and Natalie Du Pasquier.

For its 10th edition, the Back to the Future section will focus on the period between 1960 and 1999. How and according to what languages did the artists active in those years influence today’s artists?
According to the most varied languages. When we talk about the twentieth century, in fact, we are talking about a period that saw the world change at an unprecedented speed. Larte has gone along with these changes by producing theories and languages that have been refuted and regenerated at an impressive rate. Forty years in twentieth-century art are like four centuries in the eras that preceded them. In a relatively short period of time there is a frenetic succession of actions and reactions to which today’s art continues to draw freely and equally frantically.

When we think of a dialogue...artistic we usually imagine a dialogue between ancient and contemporary. Why do you think it is important that there is also a rediscovery and a connection by artists of the current contemporary to artists of the recent contemporary?
For the reasons I mentioned earlier. Because the recent past has moved very fast. Sometimes too fast compared to the physiological times of assimilation by the public or even by the insiders themselves. Experiences that had territorial visibility did not necessarily enjoy the conditions to expand to other contexts. The public and the market itself may not have been well aware of something significant that therefore finds, paradoxically, more meaning today than at the very moment it happened.

Anna Maria Maiolino [Back to the Future 2010], E o que sobra (1974; black and white digital image, 72 x 152 cm). Courtesy Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan

Nanni Balestrini [Back to the Future 2010], Untitled (ca. 1961; collage on paper, 25 x 35 cm). Courtesy Giacomo Guidi & MG Art, Rome

Maria Lai [Back to the Future 2010], Stitched canvas (1974; mixed media, 78.5 x 82.5 cm). Courtesy the artist and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin

Tomaso Binga [Back to the Future 2011], Letter A, from Alphabetizer (1976-1977; collage on paper, 17 pieces of 40 x 27 cm each). Courtesy the artist and Wunderkammern, Rome

Giorgio Griffa [Back to the Future 2011], Brushstrokes (1975; tempera on canvas, 145 x 190 cm). Courtesy Giampiero Basutti, Turin

Lili Dujourie [Back to the Future 2015], Still Life (1976; collage on paper, 34.5 x 24 cm). Courtesy the artist and Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Brussels

Renate Bertlmann [Back to the Future 2016], Tender pantomime (1976; black-and-white photograph, 27 x 25 cm). Courtesy Richard Saltoun, London © the artist

Beverly Pepper [Back to the Future 2017], Installation view, Artissima 2017. Courtesy Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles Photo: Giorgio Perottino

Rolf Julius [Back to the Future 2018], Mirror (1992; iron, mirror, speaker, CD player, audio, 11.5 x 10.5 x 10 cm). Courtesy the artist and Thomas Bernard - Cortex Athletico, Paris

As director of GAMeC in Bergamo, have you made or will you make an exhibition project that has similar intentions to Back to the Future?
I have dedicated several projects to major figures who, for different reasons, had left or even never entered the radar of the art system. Maria Lai, Birgit Jürgenssen, Gary Kuehn, to name a few of the names that Back to the Future had brought lattention to. And I must say that I have always derived great satisfaction from these re-reading efforts, especially when they succeeded in triggering virtuous processes of re-evaluation.

Do the works that belong to the Back to the Future section tie in with the general theme of Artissima, which is desire and censorship? Can you give some examples?
Only a few works connect to the intriguing theme of desire and censorship chosen by Ilaria Bonacossa for this edition of Artissima. We didn’t feel it was appropriate to necessarily seek anassonance so as not to limit our field of maneuver. Ten editions of the section are many and since we could not re-propose artists already presented in the past, we preferred to have our hands free and look first at the quality, radicality and coherence of the different researches, without thematic constraints. Some experiences, however, are naturally oriented toward the subject matter, above all that of Barbara Hammer, a multifaceted artist who passed away last March, active since the late 1960s mainly as a video maker and forerunner of queer cinema.

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