2012 : LE ASSOCIAZIONI LIBERE, LA MAISON ROUGE, PARIS

Within a space inside La Maison Rouge, surrounded by the exhibition of the Setari Collection, the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art asked Chiara Parisi and Nicola Setari to propose a presentation of the Italian art scene today. Italy’s contemporary art scene is rebellious and unpredictable. Attitudes are remarkable, powerful, but also astonishingly radical and poetic. A ‘national’ approach could not convey its full diversity hence “Le associazioni libere” [free associations] takes a different angle. It invites independent, artist-run-spaces and magazines to show this diversity and alternative projects happening alongside or concomitant to Italian public and private initiatives, and to present their idea of what art can be in a non-institutional context. With the artistic coordination of Francesca di Nardo, this project shows one aspect of the Italian contemporary creation, seen through some of the alternative vectors set up over recent years, and through multiple and ambitious editorial slants. All these initiatives – with their various ideological and political frameworks, often pursuing very different strategies to survive – stand out as a possible heritage left to society by Arte Povera, a movement that reawakened our sensibility by expanding the artistic sphere and practices.

Lucie Fontaine in Milan, Cripta 747, which started out in Turin, and Cherimus in Sardinia are just three of these artist-run alternative venues. Among the magazines, Mousse and Kaleidoscope in Milan, Cura, Nero and Artribune in Rome are examples of the intellectual and editorial outpouring behind this renewal. Thanks to an international connection and unfailing solidarity, Italian artists are demonstrating amazing vitality.

Established in 2001 by Giuliana Carusi Setari, with offices in Paris and New York, the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art promotes and develops synergy for Italian artists. Alongside the presentation of the Setari Collection, the project at La Maison Rouge celebrates the inventiveness and creativity with which Italian art expresses its response to all forms of crisis, whether political, ideological, intellectual or indeed artistic.

Curated in close consultation with the structures, magazines and in particular artists, Diego Perrone and Christian Frosi, who based their design for the exhibition on their first-hand experience of these systems, the project shows recent works and special commissions.

Free Associations:
Anonima Nuotatori, Vincenzo Schillaci e Giuseppe Buzzotta, Artribune, Massimo Grimaldi, Cherimus, Marco Colombaioni, Codalunga, Nico Vascellari, Cripta 747, Mauro Vignando, Cura, Ian Tweedy, Gasconade, Andrea Romano, GiuseppeFrau Gallery, Eleonora Di Marino, Kaleidoscope, Andrea Sala e Tommaso Garner, Le Dictateur, Federico Pepe, Lucie Fontaine, Daniella Isamit Morales, Mousse, Yuri Ancarani, Nero, Nicola Pecoraro.