CENTRO PECCI exhibitions

The first contemporary art institution newly created in Italy in 1988, since its opening Centro Pecci has stood out as a center of cultural production committed to artistic research in the wider sense of the term. 

 

Under the direction of Cristiana Perrella, starting in March 2018, Centro Pecci now has a new “look” that makes it increasingly appealing and open to the city. The 30th birthday has been taken as a chance to reinterpret and reactivate the spaces and functions of Centro Pecci after the expansion completed in 2016. The exhibition will be accompanied by a insightful program of activities connected with literature, music, performance and theather.

 

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The Museum Imagined. Stories from 30 years of Centro Pecci is composed of three parts.  The first, a timeline designed by the graphic arts studio of Sara De Bondt, narrates the sequence of exhibitions, concerts, programs, festivals and talks hosted by the museum across these three decades, providing a chance to map a sort of DNA of the museum through various materials: videos, photographs, documents, audio tracks, posters, works.

 

The second begins with analysis – both statistical and semantic – of information from the archives, organized together with the MoSIS (Models and Systems of Statistical Information) of PIN, Polo Universitario Città di Prato, tracing a parallel and at times unexpected history of the museum. A story made of quantities: the number of works in the collection, the exhibitions, visitors, artists (a total broken down by geographical origin, age, gender). 

 

The timeline and the results of the analysis of archival data form a conceptual framework for the third part of the 30-year narrative: a new installation of a selection of works, mostly from the museum’s collection, selected by tracing the history of the most outstanding exhibitions held at Centro Pecci since 1988. Works such as those by Zorio, Schnabel, Cucchi, Merz, Acconci, Morris, which reflect the focus on the great protagonists of Italian and American art in the 1980s and 1990s, artists whose works were featured in important solo shows at the museum. Or those of John Coplans, Craigie Horsfield, Robert Mapplethorpe and Nobuyoshi Araki pointing to an interest in photography. Other lines of research gleaned from the exhibitions reveal a specific sensitivity to the epochal changes taking place in Europe towards the end of the second millennium. It was no coincidence that Centro Pecci opened in 1988 with an exhibition titled Europe Now, featuring works like those of Michelangelo Pistoletto or Anish Kapoor, to indicate the faith and enthusiasm for the concept of a cultural. Also in connection with the European sociopolitical climate from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the Center widened its range to include the art of Eastern Europe, including the very timely Contemporary Russian Artists in 1990, leading to the acquisition of works in the collection such as those of Ilya Kabakov. A close attention was also devoted to the latest trends in Italian art, to Stefano Arienti and Massimo Bartolini, and to environmental installations. The Center’s collection contains many works of great depth, like the piece by Mario Merz, La spirale appare, or the work made by Barbara Kruger on the facade of a factory in Prato as part of the exhibition Inside/out curated by Ida Panicelli in 1993, as well as the work by Michael Lin done in 2010, or that of Thomas Hirschhorn, acquired at the time of the exhibition The End of the World in 2016, which will be reinstalled for this 30th anniversary. The focus on performance art and live events has addressed the extensive use of time and space, as seen in the remake of the performance Che cos’è il fascismo by Fabio Mauri, presented in 1993, also part of Inside/out, or the work by Kinkaleri, Otto, a performance that will be reactivated for the exhibition, as well as that of Jérôme Bel presented in 2017.

 

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the museum, a recent work by Martin Creed (Wakefield, UK, 1968) will be installed in the entrance hall: his neon, Work No 2833: Do not Worry, 2017. This is the one and only work on display that does not belong to the past history of the museum, rather, it is an invitation, made with the irony typical of its author, to look to the future with confidence.

 

 

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Multidisciplinary programming for the 30th anniversary

The history of Centro Pecci is one of multidisciplinary activity and dialogue, on both local and international levels, which will be enhanced by the events that accompany the 30th birthday celebration::

 

Codice Colore, works from the collection of Alessandro Grassi, an exhibition curated by Stefano Pezzato (from 7 September to 2 December 2018) that highlights the remarkable long-term loan of works granted by Alessandro Grassi, one of the most important Italian collectors. Having close ties with the Prato area, he was one of the first supporters of the Transavanguardia, and a steadfast patron of European and American postmodern painting and photography.

 

Otto, the performance by Kinkaleri, sixteen years after its debut (Premio UBU 2002 as best dance theater production), will be adapted for the new spaces of Centro Pecci in collaboration with Teatro Metastasio, and will be previewed during the opening, with ongoing performances every week on Friday and Sunday, until 21 October

 

RAID, a new performance by Marcello Maloberti commissioned by Centro Pecci for the Giornata del Contemporaneo. On 13 October, AMACI presents a widespread exhibition by Marcello Maloberti, which will take place in all the museums of the association. Maloberti has been invited to create a performance for the 30th anniversary that connects to the new installation of the collection. Raid will happen in all the rooms of the museum, relating to the works shown inside

 

The Second Summer of Love, a series of artists’ films that narrates another anniversary with reference to 1988: the year of the explosion in the United Kingdom of electronic music and youth culture, which then expanded into Europe and the United States. The roots of the acid house and rave scenes, and the way they revolutionized youth lifestyles with a lasting impact on contemporary culture, comparable to that of the counter-culture of the 1960s, provide inspiration for work by Jeremy Deller. While the scenes that preceded and influenced rave inspire the works by Wu Tsang and Josh Blaaberg. Commissioned and produced in collaboration by Frieze and Gucci, the three films are presented for the first time in Italy at Centro Pecci, starting with Into a Space of Love by Wu Tsang, which will be screened from 6 to 11 November, followed by Distant Planet by Josh Blaaberg (from 13 to 18 November) and Everybody In The Place by Jeremy Deller (from 20 to 25 November).

 

The new Pecci Vintage channel for the Web TV of Centro Pecci For the 30th anniversary and in the context of the reprise of activity of the Web TV of Centro Pecci, which offers multiple video contents on exhibitions, talks, performances and concerts that have taken place at the Center, the new Pecci Vintage channel is being launched, featuring archival video materials that have been restored and made available for the first time, including some that will be inserted in the context of the exhibition The Museum Imagined.

 

 

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The Museum Imagined. Stories from 30 years of Centro Pecci

Curated by Cristiana Perrella . 

In collaboration with Irene Innocente, Elena Magini, Marta Papini, Maria Teresa Soldani. 

 

When

22 September 2018 – 7 May 2019

 

Opening

21 settembre, ore 19

 

Opening

Opening: 21 September, 19.00

preview OTTO, Kinkaleri ,19.30

 

>Opening Hours

> Tickets

 

Photo: Centro Pecci Prato, building by Italo Gamberini in 1988 - ph. Centro Pecci Archive

 

 

Pecci 30

Events, exhibitions and initiatives on the occasion of the 30^th anniversary of the Centro Pecci.