Little Constallation - Milano

A view on contemporary art in geo-cultural micro-areas and small States of Europe
9 March – 8 April 2010

Exhibition area_ Sala delle Colonne
Video documentary_ DOCVA
Performance_ Careof

Fabbrica del Vapore
Via Procaccini, 4
Milan, Italy

Albani & Mussoni, Danil Akimov & sound art lab, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, Barbara Bühler Canarezza & Coro, Nina Danino, Oppy De Bernardo, Sandrine Flury, Barbara Geyer, Irena Lagator Ingibjörg Magnadóttir, Mark Mangion, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Paradise Consumer Group Pierre Portelli, Quino & Juanjo Oliva, Matteo Terzaghi & Marco Zürcher, Axsinja Uranova, Martin Walch, Trixi Weis

Opening: Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Preview: 7 p.m.
Public opening: 8 p.m. – midnight

Curator, Roberto Daolio
Assistant curator, Alessandro Castiglioni

Edition Mousse

How is the practice of making art experienced today in certain geo-cultural micro-areas and small States of Europe? "Little Constellation" began in 2004 as a research project focused on contemporary art, but not with the attempt to answer this question by finding a label that could be attached to "small states", or to provide a full, systematic picture of the art that can be found today in Andorra, Cyprus, Iceland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino and in other significant cultural micro-areas such as Canton Ticino, Ceuta, Gibraltar or Kaliningrad.

Instead, the project has developed and taken shape—through the story of many different relationships, ideas, experiences—through the diffusion of information, placed in a continuous current that generates possibilities for interaction, and as a device shared by artists, curators, institutional representatives from museums, centers, and research collectives; the projects has stimulated proposals and the development of a platform of knowledge focused on contemporary artistic practice in these countries, within the sphere of the international artistic debate.

Born as international network for contemporary art from the idea of Rita Canarezza & Pier Paolo Coro, /little constellation/ from research project, also thanks to this show, become an international platform of exchange and spread of information, with the purpose to create co-productions and collaborations for new projects.

More than twenty artists of /little constellation/ meet for the first time in a unique and inedited exhibition that will present at Fabbrica del Vapore di Milano the more interesting projects of a vision on contemporary art in micro geo-cultural areas and small European States. Artists born e working in those small geographical realities, with a population of less than a million inhabitants, where the idea of border and identity become distinctive and essential, although realized through different languages.

Live and work in a "micro-state" force the inevitable comparison on one side with the macro social and political reality that include it, that is Europe, and on the other side with the sense of identity and the permeable idea of border that often in the work of artists become an idea of interior and emotional geography, where the knowledge of the world become knowledge of themselves.

Also if the title suggest it, there's no a limited thematic direction that associates all the artistic proposals. It's more a "constellation" of ideas that involve many directions, each performing on its own way. Paradoxically what associates and approaches these artists it's the perception and the sense of distance of living in these symbolic areas, as a garish result, tent to read these places (clear or not, judge or accomplice) in the continue process of systemic self-reorganization and autopoietic observation, that characterized the complexity of western societies.

Supported from the beginning, it was 2004, from Foundation San Marino and Social and Cultural Activities Office then joint by Ente Cassa of Faetano of Republic of San Marino, the project has created a real network of relationship with many authorities, associations, museums, artists of small states of Europe, Andorra, Cyprus, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino and some micro geo-cultural realities of the European markets including Canton Ticino (CH), Ceuta (ES), Gibraltar (UK), Kaliningrad (RUS).

Contact
http://www.littleconstellation.org
nua@omniway.com

Press
METAMUSA arte ed eventi culturali
Gallarate (Italy) /Tel + 39 0331 777472
press@littleconstellation.org

Fabbrica del Vapore
via Procaccini, 4
Milan, Italy

Monday to Saturday 15.00-19.00
morning appointment
info +39 0331 777472

Nua new arts and contemporary research
str. lamaticcie, 54 rsm-47899 serravalle, republic of san marino
ph +378 0549904128 / mob +39 3356509052, +39 3381935637
nua@littleconstellation.org / http://www.littleconstellation.org