In today's era of increasingly eroding certainties, Cura. 39 looks at artists that survey the fundamental questions of life and death, extinction and immortality, investigating the impact that fragments of the past, technology, and collective behavior can have in becoming active agents of change, transformation, and connection.
We are moving into a future where technology is going to turn our memories of what we have lost into something more objective. Artistic surveying explores the great mysteries of human existence, diving into the essence of life, in a de-extinction process triggered by the anxiety of natural decay. In the Anthropocene, human beings impose things on the world. But life always emerges from ruins, and the huge and the minuscule seem to co-exist in the same element, forcing viewers to abandon their human stare. Mythical narratives provide a way to think about the experience of life where each element is permeated by and correlated with the others. Some stories start at the end and we are all part of the same destiny.
CURA. 39 presents an exceptional lineup of acclaimed artists, writers and works premiere, introduced by four covers conceived by
Cyprien Gaillard (with texts by Emma Enderby and Fredi Fischli/Niels Olsen);
Marguerite Humeau (with a text by Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel and a conversation with Cortney Lane Stell);
Pierre Huyghe (with a text by Amelia Barikin and a conversation with Vincent Honoré);
Korakrit Arunanondchai (with a site-specific visual essay narrated by the words of X Zhu-Nowell); special projects have been conceived by Katja Novitksova in a conversation with Joanna Zylinska and by
Mimosa Echard introduced by a text by Flora Katz; in addition, conversations between Jakob Kudsk Steensen and
Hans Ulrich Obrist, and between Elaine Cameron-Weir and Jodi Graf, and essays by
Nicolas Bourriaud on Max Hooper Schneider and by Margot Norton on WangShui; the "Portraits" section features talented artists LuYang (with words by Nora Gantert), Analisa Teachworth (with words by Maurin Dietrich) and Sybil Montet (with words by Luigi Alberto Cippini).
Cura.magazine is a platform for contemporary art based in Rome that investigates with an independent spirit today's artistic production, art's emerging scene and the borders that have marked its central moments, through collaborations with international artists and curators, who live in different areas of the world. It has a production of three issues per year.
The platform is also an editorial structure (Cura.books), publishing a series of artist's books (see the
corresponding page in the publishers section).
