A new space for contemporary art opens in Livorno, at the Magazzini del porto

A new space for contemporary art is born in Livorno , based at the Magazzini Generali in Forte San Pietro, built in 1918 as storage depots for goods in transit from the Tuscan city’s port, and decommissioned in the 1990s. It is here that the project MG 48° 50° sees the light. Latitude Contemporary Art, born from the work of the Carico Massimo association, which has been involved in contemporary art for more than a decade, in collaboration with the City of Livorno and the support of the Livorno Foundation.

Directing the new cultural hub are artist Juan Pablo Macías, artist and president of Carico Massimo since 2019, and independent curator Alessandra Poggianti, co-founder of Kunstverein (Milan) and a member of Carico Massimo’s curatorial committee since 2015.

Instead, in charge of the new visual identity of the renovated Magazzini Generali is Bruce Delarue of Studio Zirkumflex , who imagined graphics inspired by 20th-century industrial typefaces revisited in a contemporary key.

MG 48° 50° ’s objective is not only to revive the Magazzini Generali, but also to create a true cultural chain capable of dialoguing with the territory and the world, also in continuity with its location, the port of Livorno, which even on a symbolic level thus becomes an allegory of welcome, development, and cultural exchange. The departure is entrusted to the British artist Mark Titchner to whom the first point of the Coordinate program is entrusted, a two-year project involving a series of artists’ interventions that, from the Magazzini Generali complex, spread to the surrounding urban area in dialogue with the city and the world.

Inspired by the social and economic laboratory that the Livornina Constitution activates and on which the city of Livorno is founded, MG 48°50° intends to create a topography of artistic practices aimed at delineating urban paths, drifts, autonomous narratives, in a territory to be redeveloped. Each artistic intervention will correspond to a point in space from which a place, a story, a message, a vision originates. MG 48°50° will be the point of profusion of these crossings.

Thus, the first coordinate is the one drawn by Mark Titchner who places on the outer wall of the Magazzini Generali a poetic message addressed to the city. In a space of passage, the artist spreads a text that connects to the sea and the history of the free port: THROUGH SUCH STORMS, AGAINST SUCH TIDES, TOWARDS NEW SHORES / THROUGH SUCH STORMS, AGAINST SUCH TIDES, TOWARDS NEW SHORES. Titchner’s intervention, as well as the Livornine Laws, addresses “To All,” citizens and travelers who through the sea land in Livorno, to new shores.

Designed as a landmark for an urban transit space, it faces the street to offer the passage of people a slowdown, a new perception, a pause at the Magazzini Generali. A poster that, appropriating the language of advertising, is inscribed in the context of an area of industrial archaeology on which a process of transformation is taking place. The text in English, the artist’s native language, is translated into the different languages spoken by Livorno’s largest foreign communities and disseminated through street posters in the urban space. The posters create points of connection between outside and inside, between public and private space.

The 13 translations were made possible thanks to Erik Dizon Roderick, Alessandra Poggianti, Madalina Constandis, Edson Luli, Tanya Mir, Juan Pablo Macias, Negga Dou, Moez Chamkhi, Si Shi, Dizon Roderick, Ade Awofadeju, Yalcin Adil, Raffaele Vanni, Tatyana Bolonenkova, Nicola Bassoni, Aga Pawlak, Tamas Polocz

Titchner’s work is then brought back and set up in Magazzino 5, a new space dedicated to cultural events: inside it, an exhibition itinerary opens with several of the artist’s works and a program of performances, meetings and reflections to rethink the entire area. Those who would like to learn more can take a look at the Carico Massimo website.

A new space for contemporary art opens in Livorno, at the Magazzini del porto

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