Everyday Utopias

After the successful individual exhibition of hyper-realist sculptor Duane Hanson, the exhibition program of the PAC of Milan continues with the exhibition Everyday Utopias. Man and his dreams in art from 1960 until today, curated by Vittorio Fagone and Angela Madesani, open to the public from 23 October 2002 to 19 January 2003. The about 100 works by 52 Italian and foreign artists are testimonials and expression of the life of Man, his individual and social story. The exhibition unfolds along a path that sees a combination of works that differ considerably in terms of technique, from painting to sculpture, from video to art movies, from photography to tapestry. The red thread uniting the authors does not consist of any specific movement, stylistic choice or particular period. Rather, the works created from the Sixties to today witness, through different but sometimes closely related itineraries, the human craving for myths and utopias. Drawing inspiration from their own everyday experiences, the contradictions and problems of their own personal universe, the artists elaborate ideal models, precisely everyday utopias, that go beyond the day-to-day character of their experience, involving the larger sphere of the external world. However, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction in the Nineties, especially in Europe: even if influenced by the same motivations of reflection and sometimes of unease, the works of many artists have returned to an intimate dimension. A very interesting theme nevertheless remains central: Man and his vision of the world. The exhibition features many first-rate international figures: Iranian Shirin Neshat, marked by her experience as a woman exiled from a country dominated by a theocratic dictatorship, unveils aspects of the female condition; Sophie Calle, Thomas Demand and Beat Streuli explore themes linked to the spaces of life and work, of sleep and death; Korean Do-Ho Suh presents his interpretation of reality using inflatable plastic objects or inventories of mankind consisting of thousands of tiny statues and photographs. Other artists focus on the social sphere, while Fabio Mauri reconstructs, especially for the exhibition, a room of his house within the context of a reflection on cultural manipulation. From the anthropological mythicizations of Claudio Costa and Michele Zaza to new vision of nature created by Hamish Fulton, the exhibition proceeds with the analyses of utopias of Cioni Carpi, the videos, movies and objects characterized by a declaredly political perspective of Gianfranco Baruchello and the studies of the experiences of an Iranian family in Berlin by Emilio Fantin. The exhibition also features artists as: Michael Badura, who reconstructs new stories in the manner of Rashomon, the British Gilbert & George who portrary themselves in large photographic works; the conceptual Vincenzo Agnetti, whose stained-glass windows symbolize nature, time, cosmic and spiritual utopia. And also Russian Alexander Brodsky, winner of the Premio Milano Europa in 2001, in the wake of the great mythological-archaeological reconstructions of the two previous decades, as those by French Anne and Patrick Poirier. During the exhibition the PAC offers several didactic activities for children and adolescents, guided visits for the public, groups and school classes. The PAC moreover hosts a series of theatre events: TrameNotes, curated by OUTIS - Centro Nazionale di Drammaturgia Contemporanea, with performances linked to the themes of the exhibition, and a number of concerts, executed by the Orchestra Sinfonica Giuseppe Verdi of Milan. In the period of the exhibition, from 28 October to 12 December, the PAC organizes 7 weeks for contemporary art, a programme of guided visits to the studios of Milanese artists and private art galleries, visits to Everyday Utopias and meetings with artists and critics on the exhibition premises. Within the context of artistic movies from the Seventies it is also significant to mention the event Art in Cinema, curated by Fondazione Cineteca Italiana of Milan, which will be held from 23 to 27 October at the Spazio Oberdan, under the aegis of the Culture Department of the Province of Milan. Pressetext

Everyday Utopias
Man and his dreams in art from 1960 until today

mit Vincenzo Agnetti, Michael Badura, Marina Ballo Charmet, Matthew Barney, Gianfranco Baruchello, Bernd und Hilla Becher, Christian Boltanski, Anna Valeria Borsari, Alexander Brodsky, Sophie Calle, Cioni Carpi, Claudio Costa, Thomas Demand, Bruno Di Bello, Erik Dietman, Do-Ho Suh, Öyvind Fahlström, Emilio Fantin, Eugenio Ferretti, Hamish Fulton, Maria Cristina Galli, Mauro Ghiglione, Gilbert & George, Roni Horn, Tetsumi Kudo, Ugo La Pietra, Jean Le Gac, Claudia Losi, Fabio Mauri, Giuliano Mauri, Gérald Minkoff, Shirin Neshat, Muriel Olesen, Antonio Paradiso, Luca Maria Patella, Tom Phillips, Anne & Patrick Poirier, Thomas Ruff, Daniel Spoerri, Beat Streuli, Aldo Tagliaferro, Enzo Umbaca, Franco Vaccari, Franco Vimercati, Richard Wentworth, Rainer Wittenborn, Silvio Wolf, Alberto Zanazzo, Michele Zaza