I believe that our approach was one of realism, even from an economic and environmental point of view.

The rooms of the Italian Pavilion at the Arsenale undoubtedly have a certain spatial and environmental complexity – enormous, very dark spaces which come at the end of the itinerary. Can you tell us how this project you curated seeks to address and challenge this?
I like to think that our project is a further response to an ongoing dialogue with these spaces that has been underway for about twenty years. Though the dialogue certainly proved to be complex and tiring, the reduction in the number of artists invited in recent years has been one possible response, in line with that taken by other countries (albeit with much less floorspace!). As, and even more so than, in some recent Italian Pavilions, we decided to work with these spaces and not against them, reducing superstructures and resisting as much as possible the temptation to turn them into a museum. I believe that our approach was one of realism, even from an economic and environmental point of view. As a matter of fact, both Massimo and I, in our respective fields of action, have had to deal with a very wide range of exhibition contexts for years. This has taught us, I believe, to undertake ongoing and renewed “listening” to the various cultural and spatial contexts. Bartolini’s personal exhibition Hagoromo, which I curated with Elena Magini at Pecci in Prato, was exemplary in this sense. The large environmental work spanning more than seventy meters of space hung from a preexisting and rather invasive structure in the museum. It was included in Massimo’s work which also served as a display. By dividing the space of these large rooms in two, the work/structure/display made it easier to show works of even very small dimensions.

Massimo Bartolini is an artist known throughout the world for the way his work connects man with the spaces of nature in order to elicit a different and new level of perception. Does the project for the Italian Pavilion fit within this consolidated approach of the artist? And what new ideas can arise from the application of this general concept to the specific and distinctive spaces of the Tese delle Vergini?
Yes, it will be a further stage in a long journey which, despite a variety of formal and linguistic declinations, possesses great coherence of thought. Within it, certain elements will emerge with new strength, in part thanks to the relationship with the spaces and some new traveling companions (the musicians and writers involved). To quote Bifo’s latest book: Buddhist thinkers speak of Great Compassion as the ability to feel the continuity of my body and your body, the co-presence and co-breathing of ten thousand living beings. […] The current acceleration of nervous mobilisation – which is the effect of the growing exploitation of the collective brain – is destroying the capacity for sensitivity: pathology of pleasure.

What relationship do the four days of in-depth analysis that will be offered to the public during the exhibition have with the artistic project, and what do they add to the project itself?
The programme, which I have curated in collaboration with Gaia Martino, will focus on various declinations of the theme of listening, in relation to the Pavilion project and Massimo’s work in particular. They will not necessarily be based on Bartolini’s work but rather around the many cultural issues that his work raises. The idea is to create in-depth analysis and debate that give voice to many themes which will perhaps not always be evident in the sonic abstraction of the Pavilion. Each event (of two half days) will be dedicated to a different declination of the theme of listening: from the “politics of listening” (listening as a social form), listening to the natural dimension (very present in Massimo’s work since the ‘90s) and listening to ourselves (also linked to a spiritual, cosmological, meditative dimension) to listening to the machine (man-machine, man-work relationship). The spaces in the garden will be occupied by conferences, interviews, musical performances, lecture-performances and workshops, with the participation of guests from Italy and abroad: from Elena Biserna and David Haskell to Brandon LaBelle and Francesca Tarocco, to name just a few.

In one of her latest pieces, Kali Malone inserted a quote from an essay by Giorgio Agamben, Profanazioni: “… there is a profane contagion, a touch that disenchants and returns to using what the sacred had separated and petrified.” In your opinion, is there any relationship between this project for the Biennale and this return to using spaces, ideas and objects that the sacred had placed in a dimension of ritual and absoluteness?
That’s a very good observation on an absolutely crucial point. These are delicate themes that are very much present, even though we touch upon them with extreme discretion. But now I can finally reveal some backstory. In the first draft of the project submitted to the Creativity Department in June, I wrote: “Massimo Bartolini believes that the work of art can be an instrument of knowledge, a secular faith for rediscovering an intimate spiritual space that allows for the growth of the individual and a finally equal exchange between us and the other […] The spiritual dimension – as well as in forms of renewed pantheism which the project calls for – is also expressed in the musical choices that act in consonance with the rediscovery that some young musicians (especially women) and their audiences have made of the power of certain sounds which also establish close links with non-Western and very ancient cultural and musical traditions (Hinduism and Buddhism above all).” Listening to some of Malone’s latest compositions, which you rightly mention, her connection with the Western religious musical tradition is even more evident. And let’s not forget that we are in Venice…

Featured image: Luca Cerizza – © Daniel Gustav Cramer