13.06.2014—11.09.2014

Annette Amberg. Una questione privata

Art, Solo exhibition, Roma

Extended until 18 October

Introduzione

Biography

Biografia

Dates
13.06.2014
11.09.2014
Location
Roma
Category
Art, Solo exhibition
Information

Extended until 18 October

The cycle Openings Out to Reality was launched by the Istituto Svizzero in Rome almost two years ago, to test the potential of art by making institutions the site in which to represent the scope and practice of its research. Invited to come to terms with the hypotheses of Openings, Annette Amberg has undertaken a series of investigations in different directions, a long, idiosyncratic research where cultural claims and present historical reality, institutional motivations and personal stories intertwine in a single tangle that is difficult to sort out.

Una questione privata (the title comes from a novel of the same name by Beppe Fenoglio) is the accumulation of the relationship the artist has established with this institution and the people who work there, its program and its spaces. In short, the institutional context where private and public intersect, giving rise to possible openings. But at the same time, the title reflects what is at stake in her working method and that of Openings: to transform an institution into a network between different levels of interests and desires.

The main protagonist of this exhibition, of these works, is the Istituto Svizzero in Rome (limiting, at times, but also a hotbed of energy in other cases) and its physical space. Part of the work is on view outside Villa Maraini, where a large neon sign is placed on its forbidding walls that represent the Swiss territory in Rome, clearly visible from the entrance gate. Its interiors, on the other hand, where public and private alternate, mingle and blend, questions the ambivalence with which a territory is known, experienced, crossed. Annette Amberg opens to the public one of the guest rooms in the Dipendenza, transforming it into a reading room, while the planimetries of the other rooms where she lived during her stay in Rome, are represented on the floor of the exhibition space, transforming the physical territory in the overlap of the lives that inhabit it and cross through it, its representation and perception. This dimension is further enhanced by a line on the walls of the Sala Elvetica, through which it is possible to see the layering of past projects like the first Draftsmen’s Congress in which Annette Amberg took part.

On one side of the floor plan of the larger apartment, where Annette Amberg lived during the months of preparation of the exhibition — if we intend as an exhibition, once and for all, this contemporary form of shared experience — there is a wooden sphere from the 17th century from the Salone Monumentale of the Casanatense library of Rome. It is hard to tell if this unfinished sphere, used for the construction of globe maps of the heavens and the earth, was supposed to represent the earth or the vault of the sky. Its incomplete state leaves room for the ambivalence between human knowledge of the extension, territorial power and awareness of astral distances and movements.

During the preparation period of the exhibition, Annette Amberg also asked to people involved in the installation process to imagine some events to be held during the period of the exhibition. Una questione privata is hosting a series of actions, that began on the opening day with an exercise of fencing in the exhibition room and an observation of the night sky in the garden of Villa Maraini with the physicist Franco Piperno. Other activities will continue until September 11th, whenever the Swiss Institute will be open to the public.

 

Openings Out to Reality is an experiment with a variable time span, intentionally without a pre-set conclusion, marked by a sequence of phases whose meaning is entirely entrenched in the artistic experience. The progress of this method with its anomalous temporal framework makes it possible to investigate institutional functioning starting with artistic work, making the time span into a tool for considering change.

Annette Amberg (1978) lives and works in Zurich. Solo shows: Łódź, Piano Nobile, Geneva (2013); Everything But Arms, Kunsthaus Glarus (2011), Caravan 4/2009, Aargauer Kunsthaus (2009). Her work has been included in many group shows including: Marti Collection, PasquArt Biel; NoLocal/NoGlobal, WallRiss, Fribourg; Emmy Moore’s Journal: An Exhibition Based on a Letter in a Short Story by Jane Bowles, The Printed Room at SALTS, Basel; The Futures of the Past, Kunstraum Riehen, Murmurial, Curtat Tunnel, Lausanne (2013); Unheimliche Reisen – Archiv trifft Gegenwart, Dienstgebäude, Zurich; Swiss Art Awards, Basel (2012); Projecto/Sonae, Serralves, Oporto (performance for the solo show by Charlotte Moth); Swiss Art Awards, Basel (2011); Of Objects, Fields, And Mirrors, Kunsthaus Glarus (2010).

In 2013 she received the Prix Fondation Liechti. Together with the artist Fabian Marti she directed the program Amberg&Marti from 2006-07, and from 2007 to 2011 she worked as assistant curator at Kunsthalle Basel. With Manuela Schlumpf she recently initiated the project Q in Zurich.

Annette Amberg (1978) vive e lavora a Zurigo. Mostre personali: Łódź, Piano Nobile, Geneva (2013); Everything But Arms, Kunsthaus Glarus (2011), Caravan 4/2009, Aargauer Kunsthaus (2009). Il suo lavoro è stato presentato in varie mostre collettive tra cui: Marti Collection, PasquArt Biel; NoLocal/NoGlobal, WallRiss, Friburgo; Emmy Moore’s Journal: An Exhibition Based on a Letter in a Short Story by Jane Bowles, The Printed Room presso SALTS, Basilea; The Futures of the Past, Kunstraum Riehen, Murmurial, Curtat Tunnel, Losanna (2013); Unheimliche Reisen – Archiv trifft Gegenwart, Dienstgebäude, Zurigo; Swiss Art Awards, Basilea (2012); Projecto/Sonae,Serralves, Porto (performance in occasione della personale di Charlotte Moth); Swiss Art Awards, Basel (2011); Of Objects, Fields, And Mirrors, Kunsthaus Glarus (2010). Nel 2013 ha ricevuto il Prix Fondation Liechti. Insieme all’artista Fabian Marti ha gestito il programma Amberg&Marti dal 2006 al 2007, e dal 2007 al 2011 ha lavorato come assistant curator alla Kunsthalle Basel. Con Manuela Schlumpf ha iniziato di recente il progetto Q a Zurigo.

Openings Out to Reality è una sperimentazione dalla durata variabile, sin dall’inizio volutamente non predefinita, caratterizzata da una sequenza di fasi il cui senso è calato interamente nell’esperienza artistica. L’incedere di tale metodo, dalla temporalità anomala, permette di interrogare il funzionamento istituzionale a partire dal lavoro artistico, facendo di questa durata lo strumento per pensare il cambiamento.