Ferhat Özgür, 'I Can Sing', 2008, video still, 07:00"
The video Halleluja by Ferhat Özgür, presented at the 2010 Berlin Biennale, focuses on a woman from Anatolia, who sings the bitter and provocative version in playback of the original song 'Hallelujah' to Leonard Cohen. In the background you see the new buildings of concrete, metal and glass, that advance. Built on the grounds of "abusive" housing, the gececondu are demolishing and marginalizing the traditional minarets of mosques. The artist tells us about the loss of identity typical of illegal construction, through the use of music and images.
Architettando...
November 27th to December 31st 2010
A project by Isola Art Center
curated by Valerio Del Baglivo, Aria Spinelli and Elvira Vannini
AUFO - Architectural & Urban Forum | Fabrizio Bellomo | Gianluca Brezza | Nebojsa Milikic | Ferhat Özgür | Peti Park (Fifth Park) | Stealth.unlimited | Marco Vaglieri - out | Anri Sala (special project curated by Fani Zguro)
Bookshop Puerto de Libros, via Pollaiuolo 5 | Sound Metak, P.le Segrino 1
Opening hours Tuesday - Saturday, 16:30 to 19:30, and by appointment
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Opening Saturday, November 27th at 6 pm
video screening and two musical performances by Collodel Alberto|Davide Lorenzon, Ivan Pilat | Cristiano Calcagno | Xabier Iriondo at Sound Metak, P.le Segrino 1
Monday, November 29th , 2010
7 pm– Bookshop Puerto de Libros, via Pollaiuolo 5
No-Spot City – the status of construction
meeting with Lorenzo Degli Esposti (dir. creative AUFO) | Marco Biraghi | Ernesto D'Alfonso | Nicolò Privileggio
9 pm – Punto Rosso, via Pepe 14
How to build a perfect dinner
recipes by Francesco Careri (Stalker) | Gianni Pettena | Ana Dzokic and Marc Neelen (Stealth.unlimited)
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The city’s right is much more than individual freedom of accessibility to urban resources: it is the right to change ourselves, in order to change the city. David Harvey
Isola Art Center continues with its cultural events hosted by the residents of the neighborhood, enhancing Architettando..., curated by Valerio Del Baglivo, Aria Spinelli and Elvira Vannini, which will be held from November 27th to December 31st, 2010. The term is here understood in its linguistic duality. The Italian word "Architettando" means both the activity of construction - in its physical and unrealistic sense – but also alludes to planning a deception.
The political mechanisms that control urban development and its imbalances, reflect a neoliberal economy, and have resulted, for some years now, for the Isola Neighborhood, as in a continuous fatal process of gentrification, which responds to the needs of an increasingly capitalized elite. The planners, property developers and politicians are plotting. The space that was once public is now privatized. The last agricultural and industrial architecture of the past left are now erased. Architects are planning, the cranes are dominating the skyline and new urban developments are visibly growing. They are almost all offices, shops or luxury homes, designed to radically change the nature of the mixed working class neighborhood. Mostly consisting in unavoidable antagonisms and political interests, the city is no longer an expression of the needs and demands of society, or of the neighborhood’s community.
Lefebvre has already pointed out that the physical form of the city is a product of the accumulation of capital, but also that the legitimacy of the same socio-economic powers gives rise to a potential subversive: resistance to the use of urban spaces and aesthetic opposition to incessant construction. In its complexity, Architettando..., therefore wishes to reflect on art practitioners, architects and documentary filmmakers who have taken the urban and social transformation as the focus of their research. The exhibition will open on Saturday 27th with a video screening of works by Ferhat Özgür, Nebojsa Milikic, Fifth Park, which tell stories and recount events of other districts spatially distant from Milan, but very close to its conditions and forms of resistance. The documentary director Gianluca Brezza (La casa verde - una storia politica) depicts the story of a house and its inhabitants swallowed by the new skyscraper for the Lombardy Region offices, built on the park area of of Gioia. Finally, AUFO (Architectural and Urban Forum) Fabrizio Bellomo and Marco Vaglieri -out, reflect on the hoax of unfeasible construction plans and the administrative bureaucracy that congests the city.
For the event on Monday 29th Lorenzo Degli Esposti (AUFO), Marco Biraghi, Ernesto d'Alfonso and Nicolò Privileggio will discuss the significance of the group activities AUFO, starting from the project No-spot City.
A self-funding diner will follow, entitled How to Build a perfect dinner. Artists and curators from Isola will cook recipes of architects Gianni Pettena, Francesco Careri and Stealth.ultimited, requested for the occasion. Reservations are required. Please call 347 126 4847.
Finally, the special project No Formula One No Cry by Anri Sala will be presented, a project curated by Fani Zguro already exhibited in many cities worldwide, and that will be visible only by booking a trip in a cab.
The project will develop in a dense program during two days –November 27th and 29th- involving artists and curators in the implementation of various events with the aim of reflect on the concept of gentrification, a process still scarcely recognized in the Italian context, but that has already involved many urban areas of its territory. The show will instead extend for two months, until December 31.
Info
Isola Art Center
339 6057 111 | info@isolartcenter.org | www.isolartcenter.org
valeriodelbaglivo@gmail.com
aria.spinelli @ gmail.com
elviravannini@gmail.com
Aria Spinelli
+39 3397819346
+1 7184313694
aria.spinelli@gmail.com
www.ariaspinelli.com
skypename: aria.spinelli
