Disobedience Archive (The Republic)

After Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Nottingham Contemporary, Raven Row (London), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston) and Bildmuseet (Umeå), Disobedience Archive is presented at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea within a format especially planned for the Museum.

The curatorial project dates from 2005, when Marco Scotini planned a travelling exhibition of videos, graphic materials and ephemera whilst in Berlin. The exhibition-archive explores the links between contemporary art practices, cinema, tactile media and political activism. Planned as a heterogeneous, evolving archive of video images, the project aims to be a 'user’s guide' to four decades of social disobedience seen through history and geography: from the revolt in Italy in 1977 to the global protests before and after Seattle and on to the current insurrections in the Middle East and Arab world. From the historic videotapes of Alberto Grifi to the films of Harun Farocki, from the performances of the American Critical Art Ensemble to those of the Russian collective Chto Delat?, and from the investigations of Hito Steyerl to those of Eyal Sivan, the Disobedience archive has over the years gathered hundreds of documentary elements.

The exhibition, which will be hosted in the rooms of the third floor in the Castello di Rivoli, aims to offer a wide-ranging synthesis of the earlier editions. With the new title of Disobedience Archive (The Republic), the exhibition will include the production of a large Parliament-shaped structure and the publication of "La Costituzione" (The Constitution) as a concluding phase to the entire project. The archive takes place in The Parliament by Céline Condorelli (b. 1974), with a contribution by Martino Gamper (b. 1971), while the wall paintings accompanying it are by Mexican artist Erick Beltran (b. 1972). Aside from The Parliament, two rooms serve as thematic antechambers: the first, dedicated to the 1970s in Italy, amongst others, presents works by Joseph Beuys, Mario Merz, Gianfranco Baruchello, Laboratorio di Comunicazione Militante, Enzo Mari, Nanni Balestrini and Living Theatre beside documents by Carla Accardi, Carla Lonzi and Felix Guattari; the second, which considers the first decade of the 21st century, houses works by Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Superflex, Chto Delat?, Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, Oliver Ressler, Arseniy Zhilyaev, Critical Art Ensemble, Rene Gabri and Ayreen Anastas, among others. Technical instruments, props and published materials produced by the antagonist culture of those years are also displayed in these two rooms.

Disobedience Archive (The Republic) is a work in progress reflecting on the various events as they unfolded, in which form and content vary with each venue. In this sense, the exhibition constitutes a sort of atlas of the different contemporary antagonist tactics: from direct action to counter-information, from constituent practices to forms of bio-resistance, which emerged after the end of modernism, inaugurating new methods of being, saying and doing. The archive is divided into nine sections: "1977 The Italian Exit," "Protesting Capitalist Globalization," "Reclaim the Streets," "Bioresistence and Society of Control," "Argentina Fabrica Social," "Disobedience East," "Disobedience University," "The Arab Dissent" and" Gender Politics," which joins the other sections for the Castello di Rivoli exhibition.

The archive includes materials by 16 beaver, Atelier d'Architecture Autogérée (AAA), Mitra Azar, Gianfranco Baruchello, Petra Bauer, Pauline Boudry, Brigitta Kuster and Renate Korenz, Bernadette Corporation, Black Audio Film Collective, Ursula Biemann, Collettivo femminista di cinema, Copenhagen Free University, Critical Art Ensemble, Dodo Brothers, Marcelo Expósito, Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica, Rene Gabri and Ayreen Anastas, Grupo de Arte Callejero, Etcétera, Alberto Grifi, Ashley Hunt, Kanal B, Khaled Jarrar, John Jordan and Isabelle Fremeaux, Laboratorio di Comunicazione Militante, Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson, Angela Melitopoulos, Mosireen, Carlos Motta, Non Governamental Control Commission, Wael Noureddine, Margit Czencki/Park Fiction, R.E.P. Group, Oliver Ressler and Zanny Begg, Joanne Richardson, Roy Samaha, Eyal Sivan, Hito Steyerl, The Department of Space and Land Reclamation, Mariette Schiltz and Bert Theis, Ultra-red, Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Trampolin House (Morten Goll and Tone O. Nielsen), Dmitry Vilensky and Chto Delat?, James Wentzy.

The exhibition has been realised thanks to the collaboration of Open Care Servizi per l’Arte, Milan and NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan together with the Biennio di Arti Visive e Studi Curatoriali.

Media Partner: La Stampa, Turin

Disobedience Archive (The Republic)
curator: Marco Scotini

artists / accompanying exhibition:
Celine Condorelli, Martino Gamper, Erick Beltran, Joseph Beuys, Mario Merz, Gianfranco Baruchello, Laboratorio di Comunicazione Militante , Enzo Mari, Nanni Balestrini, Living Theatre , Carla Accardi, Carla Lonzi / Felix Guattari, Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Superflex , Chto Delat? , Journal of Aesthetics & Protest , Oliver Ressler, Arseniy Zhilyaev, Critical Art Ensemble , Rene Gabri, Ayreen Anastas.

artists / archive:
16 Beaver Group , atelier d´architecture autogeree , Mitra Azar, Gianfranco Baruchello, Petra Bauer, Pauline Boudry, Brigitta Kuster / Renate Korenz, Bernadette Corporation , Black Audio Film Collective , Ursula Biemann, Collettivo femminista di cinema , Copenhagen Free University , Critical Art Ensemble , Dodo Brothers , Marcelo Exposito, Harun Farocki / Andrei Ujica, Rene Gabri / Ayreen Anastas, Grupo de Arte Callejero , Etcetera , Alberto Grifi, Ashley Hunt, Kanal B , Khaled Jarrar, John Jordan / Isabelle Fremeaux, Laboratorio di Comunicazione Militante , Silvia Maglioni / Graeme Thomson, Angela Melitopoulos, Mosireen , Carlos Motta, Non Governamental Control Commission , Wael Noureddine, Margit Czenki / Park Fiction , R.E.P. Group , Oliver Ressler / Zanny Begg, Joanne Richardson, Roy Samaha, Eyal Sivan, Hito Steyerl, Department of Space and Land Reclamation , Mariette Schiltz / Bert Theis, Ultra-red , Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Trampolin House  (Morten Goll / Tone O. Nielsen), Dmitry Vilensky, Chto Delat? , James Wentzy.

venues:
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bukarest; Riga Art Space; Nottingham Contemporary, Raven Row, London); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge/Boston; BildMuseet, Umea; Castello di Rivoli, Turin