24th June at 7.30 pm
GILBERT&GEORGE AT THE PINO PASCALI FOUNDATION
Gilbert&George will have a conversation with Alessandra Mammì and Mario Codognato. Moreover, the film THE WORLD OF GILBERT & GEORGE, 1981 will be shown as part of the Art/Movie festival. The art historian Lia De Venere will present the work CHERRY BLOSSOM No.6, 1974.
The Pino Pascali Foundation, directed by Rosalba Branà, is proud to host the project “A movie/an artwork” as part of Art/Movie, the art and cinema festival organized by Santa Nastro. Gilbert&George, are among the most important contemporary artists, will take part in a conversation with journalist Alessandra Mammì and curator Mario Codognato. The conversation will be held at Polignano a Mare on the 24th of June at 7.30 pm.
The “cinema section”, curated by Alessandra Mammì, presents the film THE WORLD OF GILBERT & GEORGE, in collaboration with the Cineteca Nazionale in Rome. it is a love song to England and our world, London and to the neighbourhood where they chose to live, the East End, which at that time was a poor and ill-famed area and did not sparkle with the blue and iron reflections of the buildings that have sprouted next to one another in the past twenty years.
THE WORLD OF GILBERT & GEORGE is in all respects a film as an artwork, and it was written, directed and interpreted by the artists in 1981. The film got lost but was then found and finally restored by the Cineteca Nazionale in Rome in collaboration with Milestone Films and was presented in Rome in 2016 before coming to the Pino Pascali Foundation.
The art historian Lia De Venere will present CHERRY BLOSSOM No.6 which belongs to the Angelo Baldassarre Collection in Bari. The picture is part of a cycle of 12 created by Gilbert&George in the autumn of 1974, and represents a very important step in their growth as artists. In the series CHERRY BLOSSOM, for the first time, the artists use a regular grid made up of a series of rectangular elements of equal size laid in a way as to create one artwork. Colour, and red in particular, makes its first appearance.
CHERRY BLOSSOM No.6 marks an important turning point in Gilbert&George’s art and perspective. From this cycle onwards, the artists turn their attention to the melting pot of cultures, ethnical groups, religions, languages and social differences that coexist in the city and therefore also to the contradictions, violence, discontent and hopes that fill the microcosmos around them.
CHERRY BLOSSOM No.6 has only been shown once to the public, in 1974 at the Sperone Gallery in Rome, before being hosted by the Pino Pascali Foundation.
The last step of this journey through art is represented by the “educational area” which will offer the public a series of educational tools that tell the stories of the artists and a selection of films and documentaries dedicated to Gilbert&George. Among those we mention Singing Sculpture, courtesy of the Sonnabend gallery in New York, an important document of the first presentation delivered in 1969 at the Nigel Greenwood Gallery. Their faces covered in multi-coloured metallic powders, holding a walking stick and wearing tweed or woollen suits (which would later become their uniform) Gilbert&George stepped on a platform and sang for a whole day, moving like little puppets in a carillon.
The presentation would not repeat for almost 15 years, when in 1991 the Sonnabend Gallery in New York asked them to restage the Singing Sculpture to celebrate the gallery’s 20th anniversary. The gallery also produced the film directed by their friend, artist and director Philip Haas, which will be shown at the Pino Pascali Museum. Hundreds people were in the audience, while art critics in New York described it as “the purest art film ever made”. The Pino Pascali Foundation will also show the documentary “Tim Marlow with Gilbert and George” (2007, directed by Ben Harding, Seventh Art Production) and The Secret Files of Gilbert&George (2007, JRP- Ringler), an interview with the swiss art critic and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.
The artwork CHERRY BLOSSOM No.6 and the educational area, will be open to the public until the 2nd of September 2017.
Gilbert&George. Gilbert was born in Italy in the Dolomites in 1943. George was born in Devon in 1942. they live and work in London. Together they took part in many group and solo shows among which are: the 51st Venice Biennale of Visual Arts (2005), the Turner Prize (1984), the Carnegie International (1985). Among the most important personal exhibitions we find: Whitechapel Gallery (1971-72), National Gallery Beijing (1993), Shanghai Art Museum (1993), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1995-1996), Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1998), Serpentine Gallery, London (2002), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2002), Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2004-2005), Tate Modern, London, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2007), Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York (2008-09), Philadelphia Museum of Art (2008), ‘Jack Freak Pictures’, CAC Malaga, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels (2010), Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Kunstmuseum Linz (2011), Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk (2011-2012), Museum Küppersmühle, Duisburg (2012).
Booking required. Please contact us at: stampa@museopinopascali.it
Fondazione Pino Pascali | Museo Arte Contemporanea
Via Parco del Lauro, 119
POLIGNANO A MARE, BA 70044
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GILBERT & GEORGE, Still da film
