(ANSA)- Rome, October 13 - After skipping an edition, the 16th Rome Quadriennial opened Thursday with a large collection seeking to document trends in Italian art. Paintings, sculpture, photography, videos, installations and performance art will all be part of the event normally held every four years, running this year through January 8, 2017.
Some 150 works from 99 artists have been grouped into 10 exhibition projects by 11 young curators.
The show's title - Other Times, Other Myths - is inspired by the 1990 non-fiction collection 'A Post-Modern Weekend.
Chronicles of the Eighties' by Italian author Pier Vittorio Tondelli (1955-1991).
The Quadriennial was inaugurated yesterday by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, accompanied by Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Culture Minister Dario Franceschini, as well as Quadriennale di Roma Foundation chief Franco Bernabè and Palaexpò commissioner Innocenzo Cipolletta. Eight years after the last one was held, the Quadriennale "has returned with high-level choices, young Italian curators and significant variety on offer, of a significant quality," said the culture minister. Franceschini added that the lack of a 2012 edition had threatened to "interrupt a long, glorious international tradition". "Contemporary art is always an exploration," Franceschini noted after the visit. "There are things one can appreciate and understand, and others that puzzle you a bit". Bernabè noted that "we sought out curators aged between 30 and 40 and asked them for a project each. They were subsequently selected by a commission made up of intellectuals and experts from the art world. Ten were selected for a total of 11 curators, who were able to get about a hundred artists involved".
The 11 curators of this edition with 10 sections are Simone Ciglia and Luigia Lonardelli, Michele D'Aurizio, Luigi Fassi, Simone Frangi, Luca Lo Pinto, Matteo Lucchetti, Marta Papini, Cristiana Perrella, Domenico Quaranta and Denis Viva.
Themes include the digital world, the relationship between cities and nature and that between urban centers and peripheries, the value of democracy, and explorations of human relationships in their intimate sphere.
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