BLINDING THE EARS ACCECARE L’ASCOLTO COLOPHON INDEX BLINDING THE EARS PUBLICATION BY / INTERVIEW WITH / INTERVISTA ERIK ACCECARE L’ASCOLTO PUBBLICAZIONE EDITA DA CON ANDREA BELLINI & ALESSIO ASCARI HARALD ACTION, BEHAVIOUR, PERFORMANCE, KALEIDOSCOPE 4 THYS INSTANT THEATER IN TURIN YANN CHATEIGNÉ TYTELMAN FOUNDER AND EDITOR / FONDATORE E DIRETTORE TEATRO REGIO 28 8 NOVEMBER / NOVEMBRE 4 - 8, 2009 ALESSIO ASCARI TEATRO ASTRA, TEATRO CARIGNANO, CAVALLERIZZA TEATRO ASTRA REALE, TEATRO GOBETTI, TEATRO REGIO EDITORIAL COORDINATION / GELITIN 30 COORDINAMENTO EDITORIALE FRANCESCO STOCCHI ON THE OCCASION OF ARTISSIMA 16 MICHELE D’AURIZIO 10 CAO THE INTERNATIONAL FAIR FEI OF CONTEMPORARY ART IN TURIN / MICHELANGELO IN OCCASIONE DI ARTISSIMA 16 ART DIRECTION / DIREZIONE ARTISTICA DEFNE AYAS & DAVIDE QUADRIO INTERNAZIONALE D’ARTE ASSO REPUBLIC PISTOLETTO 32 CONTEMPORANEA A TORINO ANDREA BELLINI 12 TRANSLATIONS / TRADUZIONI FLAVIA SHANTI EVANS, COCO KWOK MASTRELLA CONCEPT AND CURATING / SIMONE MENEGOI, SIMON TEATRO CARIGNANO & IDEAZIONE E CURATELA GENERALE 14 ANTONIO ANDREA BELLINI PLEASANCE, HONORA SHEA, REZZA FAN ZHEN PABLO ROSSELLA BONITO OLIVA CURATORS / CURATORI BRONSTEIN 34 DEFNE AYAS & DAVIDE QUADRIO COPY EDITING PABLO BRONSTEIN & CATERINA RIVA ANDREA BUSTO, CECILIA CANZIANI & CRISTINA TRAVAGLINI, 16 LEAH WHITMAN-SALKIN CAVALLERIZZA ILARIA GIANNI REALE YANN CHATEIGNÉ TYTELMAN JIM 36 LUIGI COPPOLA, CATERINA RIVA PUBLISHER / EDITORE SHAW FRANCESCO STOCCHI ASSO S.R.L. YANN CHATEIGNÉ TYTELMAN STEVEN AURÉLIE VOLTZ GALLERIA BUENOS AIRES, 10 18 CLAYDON CATHERINE WOOD 20124, MILANO - ITALIA ANDREA BELLINI TEL +39 (0)2 365 355 63 TEATRO GOBETTI 38 20 LOGISTICS AND ORGANIZATION / FAX +39 (0)2 365 661 17 LOGISTICA E ORGANIZZAZIONE [email protected] MATT AFRODITE OIKONOMIDOU WWW.THEKALEIDOSCOPE.EU GUY MULLICAN DE AURÉLIE VOLTZ SET DESIGN / ALLESTIMENTI PRINT / STAMPA COINTET 40 LAURA VINCENTI ROTO 3 INDUSTRIA GRAFICA S.P.A. MARIE DE BRUGEROLLE TEATRICO S.R.L. - RIVOLI (TO) CASTANO PRIMO (MI) 22 NICO GRAFICHE VELA - BINASCO (MI) VASCELLARI COMMUNICATION / COMUNICAZIONE JIMMY ANDREA BUSTO HARULA PEIROLO RASKIN 42 MIGUEL ABREU CAO FEI’S PROJECT IS REALIZED IN COLLABORATION 24 TRIS WITH DEPART FOUNDATION, GROTTAFERRATA, ROMA VONNA-MICHELL AND ARTHUB, SHANGAI / IL PROGETTO DI CAO FEI TOM È REALIZZATO IN COLLABORAZIONE CON YANN CHATEIGNÉ TYTELMAN DEPART FOUNDATION, GROTTAFERRATA, ROMA O’SULLIVAN 44 E ARTHUB, SHANGAI. & JOANNE BEDWYR BEDWYR WILLIAMS’ PROJECT IS CURATED AND PRODUCED BY NOMAS FOUNDATION, ROMA / TATHAM WILLIAM IL PROGETTO DI BEDWYR WILLIAMS È CURATO E YANN CHATEIGNÉ TYTELMAN CECILIA CANZIANI & ILARIA GIANNI PRODOTTO DA NOMAS FOUNDATION, ROMA. 26 46 4 5 the recitation of a script and the “communication” of content in five different theaters for five days. In short, our idea is to bring up new possibilities and creating unprecedented prospects of INTERVIEW the traditional sense: The audience has to surrender to a flow of space into play, not just any space but an absolutely specific collaboration between cultural areas while attempting, perhaps, signifiers, some of them visual because the eye, according to Bene, one like the theater, with all its implications for the collective to share different audiences and win over new ones. I believe, as “listens” and loses itself in the power of a sound experienced as imagination. We have not wanted to impose a rigid curatorial line: a consequence, that it can serve as a model for future exchanges WITH oblivion, and of a spectacle experienced as ecstasy. Bene pushed every artist will take on the risk of making a genuine statement in and for a kind of “role-playing game” between the institutions the limits of the structure and meaning of the theater more than the theater of his or her own choice and, as I said before, without that produce and propose culture, especially in Italy. What do you ANDREA anyone else. In this sense we decided it might be interesting to time limits or constraints of any kind. think of this? take the title of our project from the actor from Otranto—he hated AB it when people said he was from Puglia. Obviously the reference AA What you are describing is a desirable and ideal scenario. In reality, BELLINI to Carmelo Bene is no more than a starting point for us. Tell us about the choice of the artists involved. How was it the continual cuts made by the government to the funds allocated made? What approach did you take? What kind of research to culture in our country not only do not allow us to hope for AA did you decide to shed light on? I gather, among other things, “future exchanges” between different disciplines, but are grounds It can be said that few people have actually ventured into the that all the works presented will be totally new and produced for concern about the fate of cultural institutions. territory of art/theater, which is in many ways still unexplored. especially for the occasion... ALESSIO ASCARI So what approach is “Blinding the Ears” going to take? How AB AA will it look at this relationship? What kind of discourse does it The artists were largely chosen by me, with the help of Yann In fact there has been a great deal of talk in Italy, even in the last intend to formulate? Chateigné. We wanted to pick out a number of figures, including few months, of a “crisis in the theater”—too much public money, AB ones who were very different from one another, who over time very often badly spent, and not much public. Alessandro Baricco First of all, I would like to stress the fact that “Blinding the Ears” have shown a specific interest in the question of the theater, has written about this in La Repubblica, causing much commotion. is not a festival of performance. The works that we will see in and in some cases of performance. We have tried to give voice Whether you agree with this idea or not, it is interesting to think— Turin have been created for the theater. In short, they have been to artists with a wide variety of experiences and approaches. In as you are doing with “Blinding the Ears”—about new ways of conceived for a very specific place, with precise characteristics. In Turin we will see true theatrical plays performed, as in the case using and conceiving of theater, as a physical place as well. What many cases the artists will not even appear on stage, but will be of Michelangelo Pistoletto and Guy de Cointet, as well as several do you think? the directors of the event. At the same time, it is not a theatrical types of choreographic work—I’m thinking of Cao Fei and Pablo AB project in the classical sense either: in reality the project starts Bronstein. We’ll see the Dionysian theater of the Gelitin group, To some extent I understand what Baricco is saying, but I believe out from the work of an artist, Michelangelo Pistoletto, who has the autobiographical theater of Tris Vonna-Michell and the absurd the problem is a different one. For decades our country has been ALESSIO ASCARI undoubtedly operated outside, and perhaps, to some extent, even theater of Bedwyr Williams, along with many other things… displaying an extraordinary unrivaled talent for wasting public From November 6th to 8th, 2009, Artissima will be held for the in opposition to traditional theater. We look at the relationship money: we are the paradise of unfinished roads, environmental sixteenth time. The last two fairs, which were carried out under between visual arts and theater with the greatest freedom and AA monstrosities, illegal workers, tax evaders and the absurd privileges your direction, were characterized by a markedly international from as lay a viewpoint as possible: we don’t want to tell the theater We have said that the project will be staged in five of the city’s of a political class willing to accept a mediocre daily existence outlook and by innovative cultural proposals capable of going how it ought to be but is not, and neither do we want to tell artists historic theaters (Teatro Regio, Teatro Carignano, Teatro Gobetti, and incapable of expressing an overall vision of the future. Having beyond the “stand,” beyond the traditional fair.... I’m thinking what they should do and how much time they have to do it. Cavallerizza Reale and Teatro Astra). So this initiative will be said this, everyone knows that Italy invests very little in culture, in of Present Future, the section dedicated to young artists and inserted forcefully into the urban fabric, into the life and cultural comparison with other Western countries. The perpetual assembly recently established galleries (characterized, and this is really AA spaces of the city. of the ignorant going on about too much public money being put new, by their curatorial approach), as well as Volume, the series At the same time, the event falls very neatly into a climate of AB into culture fills me with disgust and boredom. As for theaters... of evening events and performances focusing on sound and on renewed interest in this field.... I’m thinking of “The World as a I believe it is our duty to show the city and its architectural I tend to look at them as magnificent containers that are crying out exchanges between art and music. Stage,” the exhibition devoted to the exchanges between the two masterpieces to the international public of Artissima. In other to be filled with different things and people. This year there is a sense of great anticipation over the ambitious disciplines held in 2007 at the Tate Modern in London, as well as countries people speak of Turin as a European capital of and fascinating project “Blinding the Ears” (to which this special “Il Tempo del Postino,” a project organized by Hans Ulrich Obrist contemporary art, but also as a beautiful, elegant and efficient AA edition of Kaleidoscope is dedicated), a thematic exploration of the and Philippe Parreno and staged at the last Art Basel fair in the city.