ICA MILANO ISTITUTO CONTEMPORANEO PER LE ARTI

SIMONE FORTI VICINO AL CUORE / CLOSE TO THE HEART Curated by Chiara Nuzzi and Alberto Salvadori

29th November – 2nd February 2020

Opening: Thursday, 28th November 2019, 6 – 9 PM

ICA Milano Institute of Contemporary Arts Milano, Via Orobia 26 www.icamilano.it [email protected] Press contact OPENING HOURS PCM Studio di Paola C. Manfredi Via Carlo Farini 70 – 20159 Milano Thursday – Sunday: 11.00 – 07.00pm www.paolamanfredi.com Closed on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays Paola C. Manfredi: [email protected] For credits and to request images: By appointment: [email protected] +39 375 5324806 T. + 39 02 87 28 65 820 ICA Milano – Istituto Contemporaneo per le Arti presents Vicino al Cuore / Close to the Heart, the first solo show dedicated to Simone Forti by an Italian institution. Forti (, 1935) is an Italian-American choreographer, dancer and visual artist. The exhibition will draw the attention of critics and of the public to the poetics of Simone Forti, who has been a key figure for the development of performance art from the end of the ‘50s to the present. The exhibition is curated by Chiara Nuzzi and Alberto Salvadori. It will be open to the public free of charge from Friday the 29th of November 2019 to Sunday the 2nd of February 2020.

The most significant phases of Simone Forti’s artistic research from the ‘60s to the present are contextualised in the exhibition, through a selection of historical pieces and previously unseen works—including drawings, watercolours, installations, video-documentations and performances—closely related to the artist’s biography. Forti’s tireless artistic research crosses the boundaries of performance itself, thanks to a practice in continuous dialogue with improvisation and experimentation. An approach that well represents the ethical, philosophical and intellectual reflection proposed by ICA Milano in connection to the theme of “the living”, the guiding thread of the institution whole program under the artistic direction of Alberto Salvadori.

As stated by the curators: “Simone Forti is interested to know reality through the body; direct experience represents for her the main tool for understanding the surrounding world. In fact, throughout her career, artistic research and personal experiences have merged and influenced each other, characterising her work with an unparalleled freedom, making her practice devoid of any dividing line linked to specific genres or disciplines”.

Simone Forti was born in Florence in 1935 and grew up in , where she moved in 1938 with her family of Jewish origin due to fascist racial laws. In the mid ‘50s, Forti studied in following the classes of choreographer , developing a research marked by improvisation and by the combination of body movement, light, sound and language.

In 1959 she moved to New York to study with , a pioneer of American and international modern dance, as well as with choreographer and musician Robert Dunn, thanks to whom she approached ’s studies on “pure sound”. That’s when Forti started composing and developing her first choreographic pieces, both individually and in collaboration with some of the artists of the New York underground scene. Among them, some were working in performance and dance such as , and , others in music like and .

In 1961 Forti presented the series of performances Five Dance Constructions & Some Other Things, as part of an event curated by La Monte Young in ’s New York studio. Back then they were received as radically new works, while nowadays they are part of MoMA permanent collection. Two of the performances, Huddle and Censor, will be presented in ICA’s spaces during the opening days of the exhibition, taking place at fixed date and times. Huddle consists of a collective gesture by a group of performers. They cling to each other forming a single structural body, a living dynamic sculpture. Each dancer detaches himself from the mass of bodies and climbs over the backs of fellow performers, only to then re-join the group. Thus, the performance becomes a metaphor of the social dynamics that are created within groups, making explicit the conflict between individuals and collectivity. In Censor, a performer vigorously shakes a box containing nails, while another one tries to overcome the noise by singing a song aloud. The attempt of the voice to emerge from the loud noise refers to the atmosphere of protest against the growing social restriction that Forti experienced in the early ‘60s.

2 Best known for her radical and disruptive performances developed in the ‘60s, Simone Forti’s artistic production also includes drawings and watercolors made between 1961 and 1966, when the artist was studying painting at Hunter College in New York. As evidence of this working period, Vicino al Cuore / Close to Heart presents some previously unseen watercolors realised in 1966. Particularly the series Baby, composed of some water- colors made with primary colors that refer to two crucial moments of the artist’s life, and Adventures of Red Hat, a work dedicated to everyday life moments spent with Robert Withman, artist and Forti’s partner, but also to travel and camping scenes.

After a decade of research in New York, in 1968 the artist returned to Italy and spent a year in Rome. There Forti focused on the study of zoo animals’ instinctive behaviours, portraying their gestures, movements and poses in order to employ them in her research. These drawings, whose lively lines convey a profound sense of energy, reveal an attempt to set down on paper the whole animal body and to capture the fluidity of its reactions and gestures, interpreting them as an actual dance. As evidence of such research, ICA will host the series Animal Study – Oxen, Turkey, Ostrich (1968- 2005) and Animal Study – Gorilla (ca. 1990). In these works the artist puts the animals’ gestures and movements, as observed in a captivity context, in relation with their communication systems, developing a study on the relationship between dance and speech. In contrast to the captivity of animals in the zoo, the observation of stray cats in the streets of Rome is the starting point for the installation Largo Argentina (aka Rome Cats) (1969-2012), where photographs of cats are projected in loop on a white sheet suspended in space, accompanied by the sound of wind chimes moved by a fan.

In Rome Simone Forti met Fabio Sargentini, the founder of historic art gallery L’Attico, who introduced her to the Italian art scene and allowed her to use the gallery spaces both as a studio and as a place to present her work. At L’Attico, Forti performed some performances from Dance Constructions and Sleep Walkers/Zoo Mantras, re-presented on the ICA first floor spaces through a dedicated video documentation. Sleep Walkers (1968/2017) in particular is a foundational work for the artist’s research and represents a reflection on how animal behaviour is developed in captivity. The result is a meditative work that mirrors the complex balance between the conditions of restriction and freedom.

The exhibition presents some seminal dance performances that have made Forti’s language known to the international public. Among these are Cloth (1967), in which performers hidden behind three scenography elements repeatedly throw colored fabrics in the air, as they sing along to songs recorded by Forti’s friends. Among the works of the ‘80s, the exhibition includes the documentation of two performances. News Animation: Mad Brook Farm (1986), in which Forti reinterpreted the chronicles of that time through the movement and the frantic reading of materials from local and international press she had collected herself, and Touch (1989), originally held at Wave Hill Estate botanic garden in New York, in which the artist explored the connections between the archaeological history of the site and the present human condition.

Together with the exhibition dedicated to Simone Forti, ICA Milano will present in its project room When The Towel Drops Vol 1 | Italy. Presented in collaboration with Fondazione Il Lazzaretto, the work is a video installation by Radha May collective, formed by Elisa Giardina Papa, Nupur Mathur and Bathsheba Okwenje. Curated by Claudia D’Alonzo, the installation develops a reflection on the themes of censorship and femininity in Italian post-war cinema, bringing to light hundreds of archival documents and scenes cut from Italian and foreign films of the ‘50s and ‘60s.

For the exhibition Simone Forti. Vicino al Cuore / Close to the Heart we would like to thank The Box, Los Angeles, and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milano, for the precious collaboration.

3 INFO

SIMONE FORTI VICINO AL CUORE / CLOSE TO THE HEART Curated by Chiara Nuzzi and Alberto Salvadori

Friday 29 November 2019 – Sunday 2 February 2020

Opening: Thursday, 28th November 2019, 6 – 9 PM

Free entry

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

November 2019 Thursday 28 November 2019, 6 PM-9 PM (Opening) Saturday 30 November 2019, 12 AM, 2:30 PM, 5:30 PM

December 2019 Sunday 1 December 2019, 12 AM, 2:30 PM, 5:30 PM Sunday 15 December 2019, 12 AM, 2:30 PM, 5:30 PM

January 2020 Sunday 18 January 2020, 12 AM, 2:30 PM, 5:30 PM

February 2020 Sunday 2 February 2020, 6 PM-9 PM (Closing)

4 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

THE ARTIST THE CURATORS

Simone Forti Chiara Nuzzi (Napoli, 1986) Simone Forti was born in Florence, Italy, in 1935. She lives and works She graduated in History of Art at Ca’ Foscari University in Venezia, in Los Angeles. Her works and performances have been presented where she also got a Master in Organisation and Production for at: (MoMA), New York (2018, 2014, 2013, 2009, the Visual Arts at IUAV University. In 2013 she attended CAMPO, 1979, 1978); Kunsthaus Zurich (2017), , Los Angeles a program for young Italian curators organised by Fondazione (2015, 2013), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015), Museum, Paris Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino. In 2014-15 she attended CuratorLab, (2014), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2013), a postgraduate research program for international curators at Guggenheim Museum, New York (2013), Hayward Gallery, London Konstfack University in , Sweden. She has worked for both (2010), Galleria L’Attico, Rome (2008, 1972, 1969, 1968), Getty Museum, private and public institutions, including kunstverein ar.ge Kunst in Los Angeles (2004), Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (MAMCO), Bolzano where she has been assistant curator. She has curated solo Geneva, (2003), Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris and collective exhibitions both in Italy and abroad, among which (2002), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2001), Castello the collective show “Afterimage. Immagini del Conflitto” at Galleria di Rivoli, Turin (1999), P.S.1, New York (1983, 1977, 1976), Kunsthalle, Civica di Trento e Rovereto (2015) and “What Happens to People Basel (1979), San Francisco Museum of Art (1977), Yoko Ono Studio, and What Happens to the Land is the Same Thing”, an exhibition and New York (1969, 1961), Merce Cunningham Studio, New York (1961). event program in Nice, France (2018). She is curator and co-founder of Sonic Somatic, a Florence-based festival that every year brings to the city the most groundbreaking artists working with experimental ICA MILANO sound practices. Since July 2018 she is part of the curatorial team of Fondazione ICA Milano. ICA Milano – Istituto Contemporaneo per le Arti is a non-profit private foundation dedicated to contemporary arts and culture, research Alberto Salvadori (Vinci, 1969) and experimentation, in which different personalities from the art He got a degree in Art History at the University of Pisa, where he world converge, including artists, collectors, art professionals and also graduated in History of Modern and Contemporary Art of the passionates. European Countries. He was awarded scholarships at Sussex Directed by Alberto Salvadori, ICA is the first Institute for Contem- University and Reading University. In 2001 he attended the Master porary Arts originating outside the Anglo-Saxon world, situated in Curatorial Studies at Accademia d’Arte di Brera in Milan. He has in the ex-industrial area of Via Orobia in Milan. worked at Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Torino Their activities include a public offer where sharing and participation and from 2003 to 2009 he has curated the catalogue of the collection are the key words to understand their attitude. Exhibitions, art of Galleria d’Arte Moderna Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Between 2009 publishing, ceramics, cinema, performance, music, literature, and 2016 he has been director of Museo Marino Marini in Florence. seminars, didactic workshops and much other, will constitute a path Since 2017 he is curator of the Established Masters and Decades revolving around interdisciplinarity and transmediality. sections for MiArt, the modern and contemporary art fair of Milano. Expression of a precise Milanese identity, historically putting into He is currently director of OAC, a project by Fondazione CR Firenze relation private initiatives with the institutional dimension, ICA and since 2019 he is director of ICA Milano, a private not-for-profit finds inspiration in the give-back culture, namely give back to share. foundation established by Salvadori himself, together with Bruno ICA Milano opened to the public in January 2019, with the group Bolfo, Giancarlo Bonollo, Enea Righi and Lorenzo Sassoli de Bianchi, exhibition Apologia della storia – The Historian’s Craft (25th January – who is currently president of the institution. 15th March 2019), curated by Alberto Salvadori and Luigi Fassi, whose opening was attended by more than a thousand people. Afterwards, ICA has presented Hans Josephson, curated by Alberto Salvadori; Galleria dell’Ariete, a documented story (24th March – 2nd June 2019), curated by Caterina Toschi, first edition of Gallery Focus, the project exploring the story of Italian galleries from the Fifties to today; Equivalences – new work by Julian Stair; Towards New Canons, ceramics and contemporary art in Great Britain (21th June – 15th September 2019), curated by Tommaso Corvi-Mora, featuring in Ceramics, with which ICA intends exploring the use of ceramics as artistic medium; Books and Others (27-29 September 2019), the first edition of an event dedicated to art books and visual culture that will become an annual appointment. From 12 October to 10 November 2019 ICA presents MASBEDO – Why Frontiers Change, curated by Alberto Salvadori.

5 Colophon

Board Sponsor Bruno Bolfo Giancarlo Bonollo Giovanna Maggioni Donors Enea Righi Magazzino Italian Art Foundation Alberto Salvadori Lorenzo Sassoli de Bianchi

President Lorenzo Sassoli de Bianchi

Vice president Bruno Bolfo

Director Alberto Salvadori

Assistant curator Chiara Nuzzi Partner in kind Facebook – Instagram Production Luisa Delle Piane Stefano Pedrocchi Margherita Rossi ICA Milano counts on the collaboration of various professionals: the lawyer Ivan Frioni for the legal advice, Damiana Leoni for Interns the support in the external relations, Franco Broccardi for the Sara Castiglioni tertiary sector. Federica Torgano

Translations Vashti Ali Sara Castiglioni Giacomo Raffaelli

Administration BBS-Lombard stp srl

Press office and communication PCM Studio

Design Dallas (Francesco Valtolina and Kevin Pedron)

Architect Luciano Giorgi LGB Architetti

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