A leading figure on the contemporary art scene, Giulio Paolini has since the beginning of the 1960s undertaken constant and unceasing research into the complex interweaving of relationships that take place in the sphere of visual experience and pictorial practice, between image and gaze, artist and spectator, past and present, time and space. The exhibition that this catalogue accompanies presents the figures and imaginative territories most assiduously frequented by the artist through forty years of work. In addition to a rich set of images, the catalogue includes a critical text by Pier Giovanni Castagnoli, an essay by Daniel Soutif, texts and projects by the artist, an essay by Maddalena Disch, another by Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, a photographic essay by Paolo Mussat Sartor, a biographical note by Daniela Lancioni and biographical and bibliographical apparatus by Maddalena Disch.

This volume is the catalogue of the first solo exhibition dedicated to Calzolari by Bologna, the artist’s hometown, in a public space, from 14 March to 2 May 1999. Edited by Bruno Corà, with texts by the curator, by Mario Bertoni and Calzolari himself, the book documents the historical phases of the artist’s work and the installation at the Villa delle Rose, consisting largely of works specially conceived for the space. The book is completed by an extensive biography and bibliography.

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.

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.