European presentation tour of ALL BOOM ARTE: Italian Artist at AlbumArte 2011-2020

On Wednesday 10 November 2021, at the Fondazione Morra, at the Hermann Nitsch Museum of Naples, AlbumArte, independent space for #contemporaryart in Rome presents the editorial project “ALL BOOM #arte. Italian artists at AlbumArte 2011 – 2020”, curated by Cristina Cobianchi (Quodlibet editore, 2021), realized thanks to the support of the Italian Council (VIII edition 2020), the program to promote Italian #contemporaryart in the world by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

Within the presentation of the volume, will be presented two videos of two artists of AlbumArte: “CORPOMORTO” (2020, 9'50") by Elena Bellantoni and “Fronte Nazionale Naso Partenopeo” (2020, 18'48'') by Anna Raimondo.

AlbumArte is an independent and non-profit space based in Rome that is characterized by its international collaborations and its cycles of investigation on the various languages of #contemporaryart, offering to the public a free program of projects that cover the various methods of art, such as painting, photography, performance, video art and sculpture, by young or emerging artists and curators, through paths independent from commercial constraints, while carrying out a program of debates and comparisons on major issues of culture, art and contemporary society. Active since 2011, this year celebrates ten years of activity.

The artists and curators selected in these ten years of activity by AlbumArte, have managed to build a community and to form a network of intellectual exchanges and opportunities for work, connection and research and it is precisely on this community of young or emerging artists that the attention of the volume ALL BOOM ARTE is focused, an aggregative phenomenon still in progress, which has involved and continues to involve dozens of artists, including many women artists and curators.

A part of the volume is dedicated to 18 unpublished conversations between the artists and the curators of AlbumArte: Gianluca Brogna with Grossi Maglioni, Benedetta Carpi De Resmini with Cosimo Veneziano, Anna Cestelli Guidi with Iginio De Luca, Daniela Cotimbo with Sonia Andresano, Elisa Del Prete with Angelo Bellobono, Raffaele Gavarro with Sandro Mele, Silvano Manganaro with Zaelia Bishop, Magherita Moscardini with Cristina Cobianchi, Manuela Pacella with Elena Bellantoni, Claudio Libero Pisano with Delphine Valli, Adriana Polveroni with Francesco Jodice, Marta Silvi with Dario Agati and Fabio Giorgi Alberti, Marco Trulli with Anna Raimondo, Paola Ugolini with Silvia Giambrone and Romina Bassu, Vittorio Urbani with Flavio Favelli, Saverio Verini with Sabrina Casadei and Alessandro Giannì.  

The volume, of 484 pages, double Italian-English version, is divided into sections that illustrate the context of AlbumArte's research from 2011 to 2020: the Italian artists abroad with AlbumArte (Anteprima 2011-2014); AlbumArte | VideoArtForum (2016, in progress); The performances; the project Donne (non più) anonime - conversation on femicide, together with the images and texts related to the exhibitions realized with all of them (2011-2020).

CORPOMORTO (2020, 9’50’’)
The work consists of a video and a large public art installation composed of a 43-metre-long polyurethane foam sign and 8 concrete objects with 20-metre-long lines each. I imagined working on the point of view from the sea by placing my work on the edge of the water visible from above. I decided to work on the concept of the dead body - a word borrowed from the language of the sea - producing floating letters in expanded polystyrene that become anchorage points for the concrete dead bodies thrown to the bottom of the sea in a bay near the Port of Tricase.

I work by immersion, with “CORPOMORTO” the immersion also takes place in a literal sense by throwing myself into the sea to construct my action. I am interested in the linguistic aspects of these maritime elements: the word dead-body which highlights with the presence of many dead bodies in our seas, the word an-courage underlines the action of jumping, the courage of approaching to reach dry land. 

The language becomes a "lifesaver", a place on which to lean, all the letters - which I throw into the water through a performative action - are an intense orange colour, the same as the life jackets used at sea. 

The dead bodies, at the bottom of the sea, bear the same writing as a reflection that emerges on the surface of the water: anchor /still dead body between sky and land courage from the play of words on the very object of "anchorage" a warning of a poetic-political nature emerges. (EB)

Fronte Nazionale Naso Partenopeo (2020, 18’48’’)
The title of this work is inspired by an inscription read fleetingly by the artist on the walls of Naples, where with irony, someone had added to the acronym written with spray paint Fronte Nazionale (National Front), the words Naso Partenopeo (Neapolitan Nose). The constitution of a utopian party, the Fronte Nazionale Naso Partenopeo (Napolitan Nose National Front), takes shape through the interviews that the artist makes to Neapolitan citizens and activists, in order to start a choral reflection on the daily micro-actions of social transformation and emancipation. A (non) party, represented by a (non) flag together with different propaganda materials, is at the center of a real electoral campaign organized by the artist, presenting also a mobile electoral banquet, similar to that of an old street vendor, which will be used for future actions in the public space. The nose, an element that defines the physiognomy of a person, is here ironically used as a parameter of identity, as a starting point for a series of political and social speculations carried out during the interviews, with a recurring motto: use your eyes, use your ears, have a nose. The video was made on the occasion of the artist's solo exhibition of the same title at AlbumArte in January 2020.

Coordination of the editorial project by Fabiola Fiocco and general coordination by Marta Bracci. The cultural partners of the project ALL BOOM #arte. Italian artists at AlbumArte 2011 - 2020 are: MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome; Roma Capitale. Assessorato alla Crescita Culturale / Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, Rome; National Gallery of Art, Vilnius; Art House, Shkodër; Bn Project, Brussels; Dimora OZ, Palermo; Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast; LE 18, Marrakech; PILOT, Bratislava.