Le Dictateur releases his last big, immense, effort: 27 international curators from the world of art, design and fashion curate their ideal show, without using images.
Le Dictateur has always been about images, no text. This last number is just the way round. Not even an image, they were all banned to black, just texts. Protagonists are 27 Italian and international curators from the world of art, design and fashion plus an Italian writer. They were ask to curate their ideal show, from past, present or even future or non existing artists but without using images. Only words.
"Dear curator, in view of the upcoming publication of Le Dictateur No. 6, I am pleased to invite you to contribute to an issue that will, in its own way, make history. To understand its importance, a little background is needed: from 2006, year of Le Dictateur's first release to 2016, year of Le Dictateur's 10th anniversary, five issues were released. What do these five issues have in common? The complete absence of words. The sole presence of images. The next number of Le Dictateur, for the first time in its history, will be composed only of words. It won't have any image, but instead will host the most urgent of works: curation. Surrealists like to state that whoever dreams is a poet, Joseph Beuys like to say that we're all artists. A little too much for the utopia of aesthetic egalitarianism; perhaps it would be better to say that anyone who compiles today is a curator. Although curation promises a new form of intermediation, in the final analysis it is probably only administration, because in the end cultural products are packaged as already 'curated' consumption. This curation is the perfect fit for a post-industrial economy in which our main task, if it isn't to be at its service, is to consume. So, when we curate, what do we actually produce? (Hal Foster) My request to you with this invitation is to curate the perfect exhibition. The one that exists in your mind. Your answer to the question: what meaning do I intend to produce? The wireframe of an exhibition. Its script. The book that hasn't yet been turned into a film. It will come to life and itself become a work on the pages of Le Dictateur. Whether it is anthological, retrospective, thematic, collective or site-specific. Whether it takes place on this planet or on Mars. Whether it considers living, dead or as yet unborn artists. Or whether it doesn't consider them at all. A project devised to push the boundaries of curatorial thought, reducing the exhibition to its pure noumenon. To the logos it was in the beginning. Pushing the limits of curation as far as thought, imagination and words can go. A total focus on the act of human curation, in the era in wichalgorithms compile the design of our experiences and our realisations. Le Dictateur for the first time in its history, will speak in your words. To host your exhibitions."
Federico Pepe
"Le Dictateur" is Federico Pepe, a self-proclaimed tyrant who grabbed full power and legitimized himself to begin an ambitious publishing project with the collaboration of Vice Dictateur Pierpaolo Ferrari.
The title "Le Dictateur" is in French, it sounds milder this way... In this form, it nearly sounds like a compliment.
Le Dictateur is the highest expression of the dominion of personal will:
the magazine is to be thought of as a state, a space where artists, photographers, fashion world protagonists live together, arbitrarily selected and invited.
Some are famous, some are extremely famous, some are totally unknown: they earned their citizenship because they have been wanted there, and they each became dictators of their own pages.
In total freedom and lack of rules they were called to present a new or custom project for "Le Dictateur": the result is a magazine with an extreme spirit.
Le Dictateur is a proposition, not a critique: Le Dictateur is not very fond of the sophisms of those who use thought and words as alibi and not as support to action.
Confrontation, dialogues can only exist after one's creative freedom has been freely expressed."Freedom of choice and movement is fundamental. For certain things—Le Dictateur affirms—democracy is useless, it actually weakens in proportion to how many people have decisional power".
Therefore, to maintain the vitality of one's creation at its highest, it needs to be as personal and subjective as possible. It must not undergo the gauntlet of suggestions, hints, evaluations, amputations.
Le Dictateur is a figure which has power, but also for a kind of philanthropy: people want to rebel to the authority principle, but when someone actually takes responsibilities for all the decisions, they are happier and quieter.
See also Le Dictateur Press (the editorial platform publishing various artists' books and other projects, including Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari's Toilet Paper magazine).
Edited by Federico Pepe.
Contributions by Alberto Mugnaini,
Antonio Grulli,
Carlo Antonelli,
Caroline Corbetta,
Chiara Parisi,
Christian Egger,
Cloe Piccoli,
Davide Giannella,
Domitilla Dardi,
Federica Sala,
Judith Clark,
Krist Gruijthuijsen,
Luca Lo Pinto,
Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti,
Marco Tagliafierro,
Maria Luisa Frisa,
Marinella Paderni,
Mariuccia Casadio,
Maurizio Maggiani,
Paolo Ferrarini,
Pierre Bal-Blanc,
Riccardo Lisi,
Roberta Tenconi,
Saul Marcadent,
Sofia Silva,
Tiago de Abreu Pinto,
Valerie Steele.
