Artists: Mairo Airò, James Casebere, Sarah Ciracì, Mat Collishaw, Olaffur Eliasson, Urs Fisher, Franco Fontana, Luigi Ghiri, Naoya Hatakeyama, Thomas Hirschorn, Roni Horn, Larry Johnson, Anish Kapoor, Jasansky Lucas/Polak Martin, Eva Marisaldi, Matthew McCaslin, Pier Luigi Meneghello, Walter Niedermayer, Annèe Oloffson, Cathrine Opie, Philippe Parreno, Hermann Pitz, Christian Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Thomas Ruff, Andreas Schön, Rudolph Stingel, Jaan Toomik, Nils Udo
The stateliness of mountains has always inspired a sense of magic in human beings, an alchemy linked to the way nature radically transforms its appearance - from a white cloak of silence to a green world of flowers and animals. History is dotted with artist figures who chose the mountains as the place to let their imagination run free. The mountain then becomes a metaphor of the yearning we all feel, a space in which the value of imagination can be preserved. This is why many contemporary artist have tried to use the image of the mountain to represent a need for dream that the modern city has repressed and suffocated. The image of the mountain therefore stands as the antipode of urban functionalism.
A border area, and not just a physical space, the mountain is also a symbolical place, and as such has been a catalyst for the imagination of generations of individuals. The city of Turin, located at the foot of the Alps, and seat of the 2006 Winter Olympics, is the ideal location for an exhibition about mountains. La montagna incantata tries to suggest possible, other ways to perceive the mountain in the 21st century, showing how today the mountains are not only a tourist destination, but still retain their magic.
The exploration is not restricted to Italy and Europe, but extends to the rest of the world. From north to south, from east to west, the mountains are the place of mythology, of enchanted tales. They play an important function in passing down cultural and religious traditions.
It is as if mountain isolation were the very source of survival in an enchanted universe, far away from the urban frenzy, reflecting the distance that separates the imaginary world of artists from that of productivity and consumerism.
Art therefore comes to be the best way for the modern individual to reclaim an imaginary nature. La montagna incantata looks into the relationship of city dwellers with the mountains.
For those who do not come from a mountain territory, mountains are not just a natural element, but a disorienting factor, a different place.
The mountains are such a nuanced, magical and enchanted vision as to form the subject of many an artist's works, who have emphasized some of its main characteristics. The exhibition La montagna incantata, a project curated by Ilaria Bonacossa, brings together over 20 artists, some well-established like Anish Kapoor, Walter Niedermayer, Roni Horn, others younger, like Philippe Parreno, Catherine Opie or Sara Ciracì. They provide food for thought about specific aspects of the mountains, like the hypnotic power of white and silence, or the altered perception of natural elements. The works of these artists are a way to call into question some stereotypes about the mountains, and the way they are perceived today. The Italian and international artists involved in the project interpret this subject openly, without distortions, offering the larger public the chance to reflect upon, and imagine, mountain univer
