The Museum’s holdings: projects, special itineraries and recent acquisitions
curated by Beatrice Merz
The Museum: the walls, ceilings and wings that are the signs of the unfulfilled dream of Victor Amadeus II and of his architect, are often the exorcised evidence – decayed by time and history – of other artists who worked in the Castello’s rooms when it was a royal residence. Today, they offer a challenge for contemporary artists willing to confront themselves and explore their capacity and willingness to go beyond physical, conceptual and political barriers, and prophetically overcome the logic of distance and separation. In the interpretation of art, walls erected to separate are used as elements of extreme communication, places and epiphanies of painful situations of cohabitation, conflict or oppression, of hope or disquiet. The blocks and walls can be mental, physical, cultural or economic. Through personal itineraries that cross and meet, Beyond the wall offers not only a fresh view of the collection but also of the very role of the Museum in contemporary society. A sort of game upsets the roles of curator and visitor, leading the latter to seek the key to establish a discourse between the works and concept of limit, frontier, place and memory.
As part of the rehanging of the collection, Voyage around my room, a special project by Marzia Migliora is shown here. The project maintains a dialogue not only with the spaces and history of the Museum, but also – through an invitation to active participation – involves the living structure of visitors. Local citizens are asked to loan a personal object: an armchair from their living room. About ten chairs selected by the artist will be temporarily housed in the Museum, entering in a relationship with the works in the collection. During the visit, the public will be able to use them for a rest or for contemplation, bringing to bear a process of exchange between the public and private dimensions. Marzia Migliora’s project is realized in collaboration with the Museum’s Education Department.
L'articolo Beyond the wall proviene da Castello di Rivoli.