For almost twenty years Fausto Bertasa has been studying the linguistic, visual and gestural signs of our age. As a profound expert on America Pop Art, from this area of enquiry he has learned to decode the mechanisms of mass communication. He analyses, selects, enlarges bar codes, displays, keyboards – typical symbols of post-industrial society, a visual code of modernity, of cable communications, the new literacy of our times. The artist uses different materials and media – from painting to photography, video to drawing, neon to installation – to reflect on the codes and means of communication: the world of the media (international dailies), verbal communication (from phone cards to the rediscovered verbalisation of text messaging), the world of the Internet (keyboards and mouse pads), the alternative paths of the communication of fair trade. In his works, Bertasa records pages from newspapers, events, microstories and digital literacy, in which logos and the symbols of the alphabet of our era are reproduced, overlaid, blended and rewritten to create a new system of signs and poetry. By creating multiple cultural assonances and reinterpreting signs, stimuli and images, Bertasa’s visual discourse is a rebus that arouses the observer’s irresistible urge to decipher and, in turn, devise his own creative defensive strategies to stem the deluge of information of contemporary society.

Fausto Bertasa (Bergamo, Italy, 1953)

This book documents the exhibition, chronologically divided in two tranche, which will be held at GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino (1961-1985 from 25 October 2008 to 6 February 2009; 1985-2008 from 6 March to 5 May 2009).

The exhibition illustrates the continual emergence of photographic forms in the history of moving images. In the 1960s and 70s, which were characterised by structuralist cinema and conceptual video, still photography represented the ultimate achievement in the analysis of time. In later years, photography became a universal archive of historic time for auteur video and cinema and, by browsing through the shelves of this art form, one is taken on a journey through both past and future. As from the 1980s, the frozen time of photography was a vision in slow motion, indefinably tending towards stasis, and the ethereal substance of memory began to be released into the world of moving images. And it is precisely in the way they reconsider memory that more recent works appear once again to relate to the language of photographs.

Artists: John Baldessari, David Claerbout, Jem Cohen, Guy Debord, Jimmie Durham, Harun Farocki, Hollis Frampton, Cyprien Gaillard, Gilbert & George, Chris Marker, Luigi Ontani, Giulio Paolini, Robin Rhode, Michael Snow, Simon Starling, Bill Viola, T.J. Wilcox

The Foundation Merz prepares to celebrate its fourth birthday by publishing the quaderni, a series of slim volumes aiming to provide the public with the latest news regarding all the activities promoted by the Turin-based institute. Each issue takes its cue from a particularly important event – which it intends to document through images better and more numerous than in any eventual catalogue – in order to reconstruct the entire season of which it was part, testifying to the subtle narratives adopted by the evolution of art.

This first issue is dedicated to Sol Lewitt, the great American artist, exponent of minimalism and conceptual art, famous throughout the world for his Wall Paintings. These publications reflect an uninterrupted dialogue with Mario Merz, with his works preserved and presented by the foundation and with his writings, of which each issue of i quaderni presents a previously unpublished selection. Each issue of i quaderni is rounded off by a section of critical texts, with lists of the works on display, and a chronology that gives a synopsis of the complex itinerary – full of performances, readings, educational activities and conferences – planned by the scientific committee which, along with the president, Beatrice Merz, includes Richard Flood (The New Museum, New York), Dieter Schwarz (Kunstmuseum, Winthertur) and Vicente Todolí (Tate Modern, London).

The second instalment of the Fondazione Merz’s i quaderni series is dedicated to the major Mario Merz exhibition held last year, which presented the public with the largest selection of drawings by the great master, some of which had never been on public display before.

The series consists of slim volumes that keep the public up to date on all the activities promoted by the Turin institute. Each issue takes its cue from a particularly important event – which the Fondazione documents through images in greater numbers and detail than does a catalogue – to reconstruct the entire season of which it was part, testifying to the subtle narrative followed by the evolution of art. These publications reflect an uninterrupted dialogue with Mario Merz, with his works preserved and presented by the foundation and with his writings, of which each issue of i quaderni presents a previously unpublished selection. Each issue of i quaderni is rounded off by a section of critical texts, with lists of the works on display, and a chronology that gives a synopsis of the complex itinerary – full of performances, readings, educational activities and conferences – planned by the scientific committee which, along with the president, Beatrice Merz, includes Richard Flood (The New Museum, New York), Dieter Schwarz (Kunstmuseum, Winthertur) and Vicente Todolí (Tate Modern, London).

This volume, published with the support of the Piedmont Region, is a tribute to the forty years of activity of Luciano Pistoi (1927-1995), art critic, cultural promoter and organiser, and one of the most important and influential gallery owners in Italy. His career developed between Turin, Rome and Castello di Volpaia, where he was quick to present emerging international artists, chosen counter to prevailing opinion with great passion and intuition. This led to the formation of a fine collection and the renewal of the contemporary artistic environment. Born into a Tuscan family, he came to Turin at a very young age and in the 1950s wrote as an art critic for “L’Unità”. In 1957 he opened the Galleria Notizie with an exhibition by Wols and continued by presenting the works of Fautrier, Pollock, Burri, Fontana, Dubuffet, Mathieu, Tobey, Spazzapan, Imai, Tàpies, Accardi, Gallizio, Twombly, Jorn, Shiraga, Riopelle, Francis, Nevelson and other protagonists of the informal movement. He organised extraordinary exhibitions in Turin, including, in collaboration with Michel Tapié, the first exhibition in Europe of the Japanese Gutai group in 1959 and in the same year, again with the French critic, the international Arte Nuova exhibition at the Circolo degli Artisti. In addition to Tapié, he worked with the most active and committed art critics of the time: Enrico Crispolti, Carla Lonzi, Maurizio Fagiolo and Giuliano Briganti.

The book is published on the occasione of the exhibition already 39 years on this planet held at Centro Arti Visive Pescheria in Pesaro from 12 April to 25 May 2008.

From its foundation the Centro Arti Visive Pescheria has demonstrated a distinct vocation for contemporary sculpture represented by great international figures such as Giuseppe Penone, Tony Cragg and Jan Vercruysse coupled with younger artists such as Francesco Gennari. Today the Pescheria presents Gianni Caravaggio’s first retrospective exhibition in the former Suffragio church, including a selection of work inspired by cosmogonic and astrophyisic visions. Caravaggio provides an idea of sculpture from a conceptual matrix with a playful character that finds familiarity within the ontological and metaphysical line of Italian art rooted in Lucio Fontana’s Spatialism and the work of Piero Manzoni and Luciano Fabro.

Caravaggio projects this vision into the current artistic panorama with a unique understanding, a vision that is fittingly presented in a space dedicated to the research of contemporary Italian artists.

The book contains contributions by the artist himself, Giorgio Verzotti and Martin Bojowald. It also includes an interview edited by Ludovico Pratesi.