Published by the Fondazione Guido ed Ettore De Fornaris on the occasion of the “Costruire una collezione. Nuove Acquisizioni 1994-1998” (Building a collection. New Acquisitions 1994-1998) exhibition, the volume constitutes the catalogue of the acquisitions of the previous five years and bears witness to the workcarried out by the Foundation in conformity with the cultural guidelines provided by the Artistic Commission. The book, edited by Riccardo Passoni, is the third catalogue produced so far: with the two previous ones, published in 1986 and 1993, almost twenty years of De Fornaris’ activity are thus summed up. This activity has enabled the more than one thousand works acquired by the Foundation to enrich the holdings of the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino.

From the evocation of Bronislaw Malinowsky's maiden voyage to Melanesia, to the re-evocation of Joseph Conrad’s ascent into the “Heart of Darkness”, the unfolding and phantasmagoria of the ten essays by Remo Guidieri that make up this volume unfold between the foundation of modern anthropology and the birth of the clash of cultures in the reflection of the consciousness of the West. At the end of the collection, Guidieri himself reconstructs and discusses his own intellectual adventure in conversations with the book’s editor, Andrea Borsari.

Remo Guidieri is a member of the ethnology laboratory at the University of Nanterre (Paris X) where he teaches Anthropology of Beliefs and Aesthetics. He has carried out ethnological missions in the Eastern Pacific (Melanesia) and Western Pacific (Polynesia). Author of "The Way of the Dead" (Adephi, 1988), "Toys. Showcases and Ventures of the Playful Tool' (Medusa Editions, 2000), 'Matisse's Farewell' (Medusa Editions, 2002), 'Shadows. On the Cult of the Dead in Malekula, Eastern Melanesia" (Medusa Editions, 2005).

The book is intended as a survey of some of the most important work of the twentieth century in different disciplines (philosophical, scientific, historical), in order to outline a multiplicity of responses and meanings and a plurality of pronunciations of the term ‘time', which can be very useful for reading many of the manifestations of contemporary art from a different perspective. In particular, the figures and forms of time that result from these readings seem to be intrinsic properties of “artistic objects”, a sort of “theory” of internal time-clocks that manifest themselves according to different grammars and syntaxes: the notions of moment, instant, becoming, interval, event, constitute the elements and reveal how time can be manipulated in a very wide range of ways, of speeds, shifts, rhythms, intervals, retroactions, giving rise to an equally wide variety of figures. All of this is constantly accompanied by attention to the salient aesthetic phenomena of the contemporary world.

Mario Bertoni was born in Modena, graduated in Philosophy from the University of Bologna, researcher in scientific history, journalist, curator of exhibitions and monographs on contemporary artists.

The book refers to the exhibition resulting from the project, curated by Rudi Fuchs and Cristina Mundici, for a major urban art intervention on the new boulevard created by the covering of Turin’s Passante Ferroviario (a new tunnel where previously the railway ran on the surface). The project brings together eleven of the best-known and internationally recognised Italian and foreign artists, who have been asked to interpret the theme of public commissions, offering not only the imprint of their own creativity but also a different configuration of the urban intervention: from fountain to door, from monument to practicable sculpture. The exhibition, held at the GAM in Turin from 19 March to 25 April 1998, is documented in this volume with images of the installation and the projects conceived by the artists.

Child Gino Enn introduces one by one his classmates, which he describes by taking cue from their physical faults and behavioral habits that characterize them and that, highlighted by an entertaining perspective inversion, determine their role as monstrum: Cucco Fulvo, for example, has ears that resemble speakers and a pulsing nose that make him look like a television; Foffo Frino blows up like a balloon every time he breathes and soars up in the sky, while Ciaba Brina cries fruit candy and the Fritti Fratti twins transform into bicycles. 

The little monsters’ classroom that Piero Gilardi paints and Sebastiano Ruiz Mignone narrates is the metaphor of an ideal world where the lack of prejudices and the tolerance towards each other allow to take on a positive turn on anyone’s faults and habits, and get to know each other in a moment of authentical magic. 

Piero Gilardi (Turin, 1942). Artist who has, since the Sixties, been centered around the difference between the terms Nature - to which “reconstruction” he applies since the first Tappeti natura in polyurethane - and Culture, particularly the technologic culture to which the artist has vastly contributed with the creation and activities of Parisian association Ars Technica. In La classe dei mostriciattoli, Gilardi takes from his own academic background and his experience in the social field. 

Sebastiano Ruiz Mignone (Santo Stefano Belbo, Cuneo, 1947). Theatrical and cinematographic set designer, he has written for television and radio; he was a finalist for the Città di Verbania prize - Il Battello a Vapore in 1994 for his novel Guidone Mangiaterra e gli sporcaccioni.

Catalogue of the artist’s solo exhibition at the Pecci Museum in Prato, curated by Bruno Corà, from 31 October 1997 to 25 January 1998, the volume – which comprehensively documents Salvadori’s artistic career from the 1970s to the 1998 – opens with an essay by Bruno Corà and is followed by critical contributions by Bettina della Casa, Giuseppe Leonelli, Giorgio Maragliano, Pierluigi Tazzi and Tommaso Trini, among others, a poem by Barouh Benvensite and completed by the biographical and bibliographical apparatus edited by Sally Benjamin Salvadori.