Guests joined us at Magazzino Italian Art Foundation on Saturday, September 28, 2019 from 6:00 - 8:00pm for a special evening celebrating the work of artist Marco Bagnoli (b. 1949), including readings by Bagnoli interspersed with live jazz music by John Arrucci (percussion/composer), John Basile (guitar), and Mark Minkler, (double bass) as well as aperitivi.
The event began with presentations on Bagnoli’s life, work and impact, including remarks by Antonella Soldaini, who co-edited the recent monograph Marco Bagnoli (Skira, 2018) with Germano Celant, the author of the book, as well as by Pier Luigi Tazzi, curator of Atelier Bagnoli. Bagnoli’s readings were translated to English by bilingual poet Sara Fruner and animated with a special screening of images and videos curated by Atelier Bagnoli. Magazzino’s galleries and grounds remained open for exploration throughout and following the event.
L’anello mancante alla catena che non c’è, a rarely seen work by Bagnoli from the Olnick Spanu Collection, was on view in Magazzino’s lobby throughout the weekend in conjunction with this special event.
The event was free and open to the public, tickets were available on Eventbrite.
Marco Bagnoli was available for on-site purchase via Split Rock Books or can be ordered online through Skira.
For guests traveling by train on Metro-North, the Cold Spring Trolley ran between Magazzino and the Cold Spring train station before and after the event. Carpooling was recommended, as parking was limited.
About the artist Marco Bagnoli
Marco Bagnoli, with a scientific background and a degree in chemistry, has been an established artist on the international art scene since the second half of the 1970s. He has participated in the Venice Biennale (1982, 1986, 1997), documenta in Kassel (1982, 1992) and Sonsbeek in Arnhem (1986). He has had solo exhibitions at prestigious artistic institutions such as De Appel, Amsterdam (1980 and 1984), Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (1985), Musée Saint-Pierre Art Contemporain, Lyon (1987), Le Magasin - Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Grenoble (1991), Castello di Rivoli, Turin (1992), Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato (1995), IVAM, Centro del Carme, Valencia (2000), České Muzeum Výtvarných Umění, Prague (2009), MADRE – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples (2015). His works have been presented in prestigious museums, from the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna in Rome to the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In 1981 he displayed a large installation in the Medicean Villa La Ferdinanda in Artimino, and from that moment he began a series of installations in spiritually and historically important places in Florence, such as the Pazzi Chapel (1984), the Octagonal Hall of the Fortezza da Basso (1989), the Abbey of San Miniato al Monte (1992, 1994, 2012, 2018/2019), the Forte di Belvedere (2003, 2017), the Boboli Gardens (2013), and the Stazione Leopolda (2014).
Bagnoli’s works have been a part of the MAC Lyon collection since 1987, the Centro Pecci collection in Prato since 1988, the Castello di Rivoli collection since 1992, the Longo Collection in Cassino since 1994, the Olnick Spanu Collection in New York since 2009, the MADRE Museum of Naples collection since 2016, and the GAM of Turin collection since 2019.
On May 5, 2017 the Atelier Marco Bagnoli opened as a multifunctional space in Montelupo Fiorentino, which the artist conceived as a total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk). The space, among other things, holds a constantly changing temporary exhibition of the artist’s work, from 1972 to the present.
Since 1976, various works by Bagnoli have been permanently installed in Bolognano, at Palazzo Durini in the historic center and in the Piantagione Paradise.
Since 2007, Ascolta il flauto di canna (1985-2007) and Dacché sia notte, entra, (2007) have been installed in the park of Villa La Magia in Quarrata. Since 2010, Amore e Psiche (2010) has been installed in the Medici Park of Pratolino in Vaglia. Since 2013, Immacolata concezione (2011) has been installed within ChiantiBanca in Piazza Duomo in Florence. Since February 2018 the fountain Lʼanello mancante alla catena che non cʼè (1989-2017) has been in Piazza Ciardi, Prato.
For the celebration of the 1018/2018 Millennium of the Abbey of San Miniato al Monte in Florence, Marco Bagnoli realized Janua Coeli, which consisted of the installation of five works inside and one outside the Basilica, and two ceremonies opening on April 27, 2018 and closing on April 22, 2019.
About the book Marco Bagnoli
The artistic trajectory described by Marco Bagnoli since the 1970s is analyzed and documented through a critical study and a detailed chronology in this publication. Examination of the artist’s contribution reveals his sense of art as a different reality in which to exist and operate. Testimony to a journey through time and space capable of arriving where language can no longer be spoken or understood, thus enabling the spiritual to manifest itself as the natural complement of matter. The discovery of an approach that finds inspiration in an “elsewhere” to create moments of vibration in which opposites meld. A superseding of the univocal, linear tendencies that characterized Minimalism and Conceptual Art, to achieve a dialogue capable of making the physical and the mental, the emotive and the logical reverberate with one another through the use of colors and objects, light and shadow. An unprecedented poetic-scientific re-foundation of artistic creation, that proclaims the unity of cultures so as to eliminate all boundaries and distances, and endow aesthetic investigation once again with the simultaneous presence of all the polarities of feeing and perception.
The present volume consists of an introductory essay by Germano Celant, a chronology by Germano Celant and Antonella Soldaini, the notes to the above chronology, the translated version of the artist’s texts present in the chronology, a list of works and documents and a critical appendix.
About Antonella Soldaini
Antonella Soldaini completed her degree in Modern and Contemporary Art in 1981 at the University La Sapienza in Rome. In 1982, she was admitted to the Ph.D Program in History of Modern and Contemporary Art at CUNY University in New York, where she continued her studies.
After her studies, in 1986, she was appointed Assistant Curator at the Wexner Center for Visual Arts in Columbus, Ohio. In 1991, she became Chief Curator and then Director ad interim at Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato and in 1997, she started collaborating with Germano Celant as Assistant to the Director at the XLVII Biennale in Venice.
From 1998 to 2009, she was Associate Curator and Associate Editor at Fondazione Prada in Milan, where she contributed to the exhibitions of artists (and the editing of the catalogues) such as Laurie Anderson, Enrico Castellani, Thomas Demand, Walter De Maria, Mariko Mori, Nathalie Djurberg, Tom Friedman, Barry McGee, Steve McQueen, Carsten Höller, Giulio Paolini, Marc Quinn, Tobias Rehberger, Tom Sachs, Sam Taylor-Wood, Andreas Slominski and Francesco Vezzoli.
She curated more than fifty shows in Italy and abroad including shows about Pino Pascali (Museo Ivam, Valencia, 1992); the first show of Jan Fabre in Italy (Museo Pecci, Prato, 1994-1995); Angelo Savelli (Museo Pecci, 1995); Alighiero Boetti (Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1999 and XLIX Biennale di Venezia, Venice, 2001); Erwin Wurm (Museum of Contemporary Art, Sidney, 2005-2006). As a freelance curator, she also worked for the private archives of Fausto Melotti, Alighiero Boetti and Mimmo Rotella.
Together with Celant, she co-curated a vast range of exhibitions about Arte Povera held in several Italian museums such as Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Museo MADRE in Naples, La Triennale in Milan and GAMeC in Bergamo in 2011. In 2014, she curated the show Trame. Copper Shapes in Contemporary Art, Design, Technology and Architecture at the Triennale di Milan.
From 2012 until now, she is the Director of the Mimmo Rotella Institute. Among the many exhibitions curated on the artist Mimmo Rotella, the most recent one has been co-curated with Germano Celant at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome in October 2018. She has also curated the installation of three permanent works by Alicja Kwade, David Tremlett and Patrick Tuttofuoco, Three projects for Ghizzano, that were inaugurated in May 2019 in Ghizzano (Pisa), Italy.
Currently, she is working on a solo show of Fabio Mauri which will open at the Jewish Museum in New York in 2023.
About Pier Luigi Tazzi
Pier Luigi Tazzi was born in Colonnata, Florence, Italy, in 1941. He lives in Capalle, Florence and in NongPrue, ChonBuri, Thailand. He is an art critic and curator, and has been president of the non-profit institution Fondazione Lanfranco Baldi, Pelago, since 1998, advisor at large to Adel Abdessemed, Paris, since 2011, curator at ATELIER MARCO BAGNOLI, Montelupo Fiorentino, since 2015, foundation member of Cantiere Toscana since 2016, and a curatorial advisor to Davide Rivalta since 2018.
Among the many projects he had been involved as co-director, co-curator and curator, he would like to mention: Documenta IX, Kassel, 1992; Wounds: Between Democracy and Redemption in Contemporary Art, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 1998; Finale di partita/Endgame/Fin de partie, Florence, 2000-2001; Watou Poeziezomer 2001 “Een lege plek om te blijven,” Watou, 2001; ARTE ALL’ARTE 6 “Voices over,” Colle Val d’Elsa, Montalcino, Poggibonsi, San Gimignano, Volterra, Casole d’Elsa and Castello di Linari, 2001; Kunststof(f), BroelMuseum, Kortrijk and MARTa, Herford, 2002; House Party, La mia normalità la tua follia, Blodot, Florence, 2002; Spread in Prato, Prato, 2002-2012; Happiness: A survival guide for art and life, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2003; Le invasioni barbariche, San Gimignano, 2005; (In)visibile (In)corporeo, Museo d’arte provincia di Nuoro - MAN, Nuoro, 2005; Artists-in-Residence programme, Action Field Kodra–06, Kalamaria, Thessaloniki, and Ayor: No Man’s Land, Hellenic American Union, Athens, 2006; Italiani in Vacanza, Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, 2008; All Our Everydays, Gallery Ver, Bangkok, 2008; Rites de Passage, Schunck-Glaspaleis, Heerlen, 2009; Young Ladies, Old Chaps, and Some Thai Friends, Spazio A, Pistoia, 2009; Il Dio delle piccole cose, Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, 2009; 1st Aichi Triennale 2010, Arts and Cities, Nagoya, 2010; Bangkok Density, Biagiotti Progetto Arte, Florence, 2011; Mondi, Dryphoto arte contemporanea, Prato, 2012; Fuori posto, Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, 2013; Adel Abdessemed: L'âge d'or, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, 2013; Nuovo Cinema Masaccio, Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno, 2014; Davide Rivalta – Bring mich zurück, Friedhof am Hörnli, Riehen, 2019.
About Sara Fruner
Sara Fruner was born in Riva del Garda, Trentino, Italy. After graduating in English at Ca’ Foscari University (Venice), and attaining two MPhils in literary translation, she has worked extensively in the publishing industry. In 2016, she moved to New York City, where she presently teaches Italian at NYU and at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She also lets her bilingual tongue loose: Bitter Bites from Sugar Hills, a poetry collection in English, was published by Bordighera Press NY in 2018, and reviewed in the Washington Independent Review of Books; Lucciole in palmo alla notte, a poetry collection in Italian, came out in 2019 by Supernova, Venice.
Featured poet in Italian Poetry, a portal that collects the most prominent Italian poets since 1950s, she happens to collaborate as performer/interpreter for the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA), and to conceive performances which interweave poetry, music, visual arts and dance, like “An Art Pot from the World.”
Sara contributes to bilingual newsmagazine La Voce di New York, and her articles have also appeared in Brick Literary Journal, Magazzino 23, Graphie and CinematoGraphie.
She has been accepted in numerous artist-in-residence programs worldwide, including the Banff Center for the Arts (Canada), the Noepe Center for Literary Arts (Martha’s Vineyard), Mountain Seas Artist Retreat (Tasmania), Earthskin Creative Center (New Zealand), Galerie Huit in Arles (France), The Writer's Room at the Betsy (Miami), The Studios of Key West.
In 2018, she was made a Professional Member of the Authors Guild and a Member of the PEN America Women Writers.
