COME TU MI VUOI
The exhibition devised and curated by the participants of the ICON 2022 – FMAV School of Advanced Studies Course for Curators. An occasion to dive into the prestigious collections managed by FMAV.
From 30 June to 20 August 2023, in Palazzo Santa Margherita, FMAV Fondazione Modena Arti Visive presents the group exhibition Come tu mi vuoi, rounding off the ICON 2022 – FMAV School of Advanced Studies Course for Curators, whose participants were given the chance to engage with the works by the great artists in the prestigious collections managed and promoted by FMAV.
Come tu mi vuoi borrows and pays homage to the title of the theatrical piece written by Luigi Pirandello in 1929, to investigate the sense of the relations at play in an image, between the subject that is represented and the author representing it. The main character in Pirandello’s play is „L’Ignota“ („The Unknown Woman“), a young woman whom we only get to know through the stereotypical vision of the characters that cross paths with her and identify her based on the social construct they would like her to be. Her true identity and subjectivity, as well as her name, remain out of reach and ambiguous throughout the play. Like in the play, the exhibition reflects on the original ambivalence of the sense of identity, which always evolves within a relational process, and of its representation in the form of an image.
The exhibition develops these themes in two large sections, through photographic works, videos and drawings by various national and international artists selected for the occasion from the FMAV collections. On display in the first room are works by Jonny Briggs, Wong Hoy Cheong, Lilly Lulay, Giulio Paolini, Barbara Probst, Trine Søndergaard, Vivan Sundaram, Franco Vaccari and Gillian Wearing. The works presented here call into question the value of representation as authentic proof of the depicted subjectivities, revealing steps in the process of becoming an image via various devices: disguise, duplication, manipulation, alienation, the revelation of multiple points of view or erasure of the author’s subjectivity.
The artists selected for the second part of the exhibition instead retake possession of their image and represent themselves how they intend to be seen. They strongly assert a fluid identity that is neither a foregone conclusion nor preformed by socio-cultural expectations. The artists’ emancipated, conscious exhibition of themselves, for example in the works of Jodi Bieber, Alexandra Croitoru, Samuel Fosso, Ma Liuming and Milica Tomić, or of the portrayed subject in Mario De Biasi, Cao Fei, Gianfranco Gorgoni, Fernand Michaud, Claudio Parmiggiani, Salvatore Spatarella and Edward Weston, wrong-foots the observer, short-circuiting their interpretation and obliging them to build new codes to read reality. This process often involves an ironic attitude, inevitably resulting in open condemnation (Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová), or provocative anonymity (Kimsooja). All the works on display thus call into question the ability of photography, design and video to speak of themselves, that is, to be metaimages that reveal the mechanisms behind how they were made. Come tu mi vuoi ironically and defiantly empowers its subjects to redefine the traditional forms of representation, beyond the canons and conventions found in visual culture and the collective imaginary.
The ICON – Course for Curators 2022 participants were: Federica Benedetti, Sara Carbone, Lucia Cavallo, Sibylle Ciarloni, Gabriella Esposito, Cristina Lanzafame, Beatrice Puddu, Chiara Spaggiari and Asia Tituri.
The Fondazione Modena Arti Visive School of Advanced Studies is considered a point of reference on the Italian and European cultural panorama. Specialized in the field of art and curatorship, it boasts a wide network of international partnerships and top-class teaching staff from all over the world. Since 2011, the school has offered an innovative training model, working alongside the other activities of FMAV Fondazione Modena Arti to give students the opportunity to enjoy the teaching of the artists exhibiting at the institution in their role as visiting professors, put together exhibitions with them and benefit from the great heritage contained in the FMAV collections. All of this happens in Modena, student-friendly city and location of important innovative forces on the Italian creative scene.
FMAV Fondazione Modena Arti Visive was founded in 2017 by Comune di Modena and Fondazione di Modena as a cultural production and professional training centre whose goal is to promote contemporary art and visual culture. With its set of venues, the foundation takes up the legacy of the three institutions merged into it – Galleria Civica di Modena, Fondazione Fotografia di Modena and Museo della Figurina – to form a veritable cultural district. It proposes and organizes exhibitions and advanced training courses, workshops, performances and conferences, as well as promoting the collections that it manages and building a system of networks on a local and a wider scale. FMAV’s exhibition activities are increasingly linked to the School of Advanced Studies educational programme –www.fmav.org
Exhibition: Come tu mi vuoi
Curated by: ICON 2022 – FMAV School of Advanced Studies Course for Curators
Exhibition Duration: 30/06 – 20/08/2023
Address and contact:
FMAV – Palazzo Santa Margherita
Corso Canalgrande 103, Modena
Opening times: Wednesday – Sunday and public holidays: 3-7 pm
Free entry