For the final edition of Arte all’Arte, all the curators of past editions were invited to collaborate, creating a project that celebrated the history and spirit of this unique event. Val d’Elsa once again became the beating heart of a dialogue between contemporary art and the territory.
Cai Guo-Qiang returned to Colle Val d’Elsa with a new exhibition at UmoCA, Olafur Eliasson and Tobias Rehberger, who jointly developed the project Fraternal Twin: an installation that recreates a bunker split into two halves.
Alberto Garutti brought his artistic sensibility to Buonconvento, while Anish Kapoor transformed the spaces of San Gimignano with his unique poetics. Sislej Xhafa, finally, created a powerful and evocative intervention in Montalcino.
This final edition represented a perfect synthesis of all previous experiences, reaffirming the value of Arte all’Arte as a meeting point between contemporaneity, history, and territory. A final chapter that leaves a profound and lasting legacy in the international art scene.
Curators Arte All’Arte X.
“We have reached the 15th anniversary of the Associazione Arte Continua and the tenth and final edition of Arte all’Arte, following the format of an annual event, with international curators—one Italian, one foreign—six cities in the province of Siena with their countryside areas rich in selected agro-environmental qualities, promoted free of charge through the selection of one or more highly renowned professionals, at least nationally. Six artists: three from a younger generation, three more established, one Italian, the others selected from the rest of the global art scene. One or more special projects. The presentation of the project in Italy and abroad, a research project seeking an alternative balance between cities and countryside, or in other words, between global and local.
Along this journey, Associazione Arte Continua had to engage with a vast range of contexts and both practical and theoretical issues, facing a complexity of situations that required the commitment and active participation of many. Numerous individuals have worked for the association over the years under incredible conditions of dedication and selflessness, as well as the curators and artists who took part in the endeavor, often generously donating their works to the communities.”
AS WAS TO BE PROVEN (OR NOT?)
The story of Arte all’Arte is exemplary in many ways. The idea behind the project is simple and brilliant, even though today there is the risk of considering it almost obvious. In reality, the ‘normality’ of the idea is clear proof of its success, of the fact that the experiment became a widely imitated model, with varying results. There’s hardly even a need to restate it, this idea, but let’s do so for the sake of clarity and completeness: to bring to the Sienese territory some of the most interesting artists on the international scene, selected by equally prestigious curators, giving them the opportunity to create site-specific projects which, in some cases—if not all—could become an integral part of that territory, contributing to the formation of its contemporary identity. So far, that’s what is apparent. But in reality, the dream, the hidden ambition of the project was to awaken these lands, to push them to aspire to something more than the status of a luxury countryside, of Sienashire, to escape the deadly trap of the fake, respectable bucolic ideal portrayed in the Mulino Bianco commercials. And how? Precisely through dialogue and confrontation with the protagonists of the contemporary world—not unlike what the inhabitants of these lands once did when Tuscany was the avant-garde of the world and all the best artists wanted to come here to work, when this was the place where new ideas were tested, ideas that were therefore controversial, difficult, but also immensely stimulating, capable of convincing a community of the possibility to transform the world rather than resign to it. A new idea, but also a very ancient one. An idea that has nothing to do with a vision of the contemporary as hagiography of the territory, as a high-brow alternative to the increasingly embarrassing rhetoric of the exploitation of history and local identity in the name of tourism promotion. Rather, it was an attempt—once again new and at the same time ancient—not to leave anything out of this territory: the magical places as well as the ugly ones, the charming village as well as the industrial town. The ancient spring, but also the municipal incinerator. By confronting them. Transforming them. Giving them back to the community as living realities.
Arte all’Arte is therefore, above all, an extraordinary act of faith in contemporary art. A belief that art can engage with everything, creating meaning and identity. A trust born from knowledge and a deep love developed over the years by three young men who grew up in these lands and chose to stay here, even as their work gained increasingly broad and international recognition. A trust that allowed these places to witness the work of extraordinary artistic figures who would never have come here otherwise—except, perhaps, as tourists.
Arte all’Arte turns ten. A cycle comes to a close. There will be no eleventh edition (…) That is why we want to nurture a dream here: that Arte all’Arte does not come to an end. That it reinvents itself, perhaps changes its name, but does not end. We nurture the dream that, at the very last moment, this territory understands and reciprocates the gesture of love. Arte all’Arte, or whatever it may become, can grow into an important moment of experimentation, an extraordinary laboratory of innovation—not for a few, but for everyone. Because this is contemporary art that is difficult, like all beautiful things (don’t believe anyone who tells you beauty is easy—they’re usually trying to sell you a vacuum cleaner that doesn’t work properly…). But it’s also an art that offers itself to everyone, that comes down into the streets, visits you in your homes. The format can be renewed and reimagined to launch a new phase—and it’s entirely possible that someone, somewhere else, is already doing so, having long since drawn upon the lessons of this extraordinary experience (…)
Arte all’Arte—and the writer can say this with full awareness, having conducted research on these themes for years in an international context—is an experience that has now achieved global reputation and visibility like few other non-institutional art events. But this is nothing compared to what Arte all’Arte has done and could still do to open the minds of those who live in these territories, to help invent new future projects that are not just mediocre caricatures of a past that no longer exists. Arte all’Arte is valuable; it has brought and can bring significant benefits—even economic ones—if the model matures and evolves, if it is supported with adequate resources and vision. But this is not the reason it should be loved. Arte all’Arte has meant, every year, new intelligences, new challenges, new cultures entering into dialogue. That is where love can come from. How can all this simply come to an end? This territory has an ancient kindness, it can be rough but knows tenderness. How can one let the princess go just like that, without a kiss? Come on, kids, we just can’t let that happen.
PIER LUIGI SACCO
