A panorama of the contemporary art scene in Italy (exhibition catalogue).
The exhibition REAL_ITALY presents the 2017 winning works of the first two editions of the competition held by the MiBACT Italian Council General Direction for Contemporary Creativity. The objectives of the competition: to support and promote Italian artists abroad and to expand public collections, thanks to the production of works by some of the main protagonists of the national contemporary scene. The result is an analysis of Italy as it is today, through the gaze of art, which reveals the different realities present on the territory, depicting our country's past and present, identity and memory.
"The artists of REAL_ITALY represent a generation that has grown up in the 'new world', in a time when technology has pervaded every sphere of our daily lives, transforming our perception of reality, our way of relating to each other, the system of shared principles and values. The works reveal the great variety of our country's contemporary art panorama, its diversity of expressive languages but also a common look at the political and social issues of the present. It is a present where the importance of history and collective memory is reaffirmed and which favors a sideways, askance look in order to discover the contradictions and worries hidden in the folds of our societies and in the recesses of our consciences." (B. Pietromarchi)
"Discrimination and social exclusion in urban ghettos and city peripheries, in spaces of detention and refugee camps; reception, right to the city and sense of belonging to a self-organized community; dialogue with the recent past and bond with the history, memory and identity of places; not to forget culture of the landscape and of artistic heritage. This and much more characterizes the works of REAL_ITALY, created by some of the most interesting protagonists of the current Italian art scene and among the projects selected in the first two editions of the Italian Council program.
Able to grasp the many nuances of reality, the gaze of the artists present in the exhibition at MAXXI and collected in this publication investigates the key points and critical issues of contemporary living, while highlighting the variety of languages, reflections, sensitivity and aesthetics that characterizes the art panorama in Italy today. If Italy is interpreted here as a state of mind rather than national territory, then its history and culture are the tools the artists of REAL_ITALY use to reinterpret the urgencies, uncertainties and new challenges of a present poised between reality and virtuality, between real and reality." (Eleonora Farina and Matteo Piccioni)
