#iolosegnocosì #tucomelosegni is the new video project by LISten Project designed to promote the dissemination of LIS signs related to the field of visual arts.
The project aims to generate a constructive linguistic debate through social platforms, in order to encourage the use and dissemination of visual culture among deaf audience.
Through dozens of videos, our LIS cultural mediators show the signs elaborated and used during their research and their mediation work, accompanying them with a brief explanation.

#iolosegnocosì #tucomelosegni accepted the proposal of BeGo Museum of Castelfiorentino to collaborate in the realization of #BeGoedition.

In addition, there is a #genuaedition of the rubric #iolosegnocosì #tucomelosegni, which consists of a series of informative videos on some specific signs of Italian Sign Language related to elements of the artistic and cultural heritage of the city of Genoa.

1. ACCADEMIA CARRARA
2. ACQUARELLO
3. AFFRESCO
4. ALLESTIMENTO
5. ARTE CONTEMPORANEA
6. ARTE INFORMALE
7. ARTE POVERA
8. ARTE PUBBLICA
9. BOTTICELLI
10. CAPPELLA SISTINA
11. CARAVAGGIO
12. CHRISTO
13. COLLAGE
14. COLLEZIONE
15. CUBISMO
16. D’ALBERTIS – #genuaedition
17. DADAISMO
18. “DIDASCALIA”
19. ESPRESSIONISMO
20. GESSO
21. GIPSOTECA
22. IMPRESSIONISMO
23. INSTALLAZIONE
24. KANDINSKIJ
25. LEONARDO
26. LORENZO LOTTO
27. MAGRITTE
28. MANTEGNA
29. MARMO
30. MINIMALISMO
31. NEOGOTICO – #genuaedition
32. PERFORMANCE
33. PLURALISMO – #genuaedition
34. PISTOLETTO
35. POP ART
36. RAFFAELLO
37. RITRATTO
38. ROLLI – #genuaedition
39. SCULTURA
40. TELA
41. TEMPERA
42. WARHOL

LISten Project makes available free accessible audio-videoguides for deaf and hearing people. Each video contains an explanation of an artwork in Italian Sign Language (LIS) accompanied by subtitles and voice-over.

The audio-videoguides are designed in the inclusive perspective of Design for All, thus allowing them to be enjoyed by different audiences, including children.

In order to make The Blank’s cultural proposal accessible, LISten Project offers insights in Italian Sign Language with Italian subtitles on the research of some of the most relevant artists of the contemporary scene:
– Regina José Galindo
– Laura Pugno
– Jessica Stockholder
– Göksu Kunak
– Gian Maria Tosatti 

LISten Project organizes accessible guided tours in Italian Sign Language to contemporary art exhibitions and museums. The tours are guided by LIS cultural mediators able to design specific itineraries and to engage both deaf and hearing visitors.

ART UP 7/16 – SHIRLEY KANEDA
Curated by Enrico De Pascale

SHIRLEY KANEDA The end of aspiration
1990, oil on canvas, cm 185 X 180
Banca Popolare di Bergamo Collection

ARTDATE
Contemporary Art Festival
XI edition
NEL TEMPO SOSPESO
11 12 13 14 November Bergamo

NEL TEMPO SOSPESO is the theme of the 11th edition of the Contemporary Art Festival ArtDate that will take place in Bergamo from November 11 to 14.
It is a large reflection on the indeterminacy and apprehension that is characterizing this unforgettable period of which we are all protagonists and testimonials, a historical phase also full of expectations and desires.

Thursday 11th, Friday 12th, Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th November, Bergamo will host the 11th edition of ArtDate, Contemporary Art Festival organized by The Blank.
Over the years, ArtDate has become a reference point able to approach and promote contemporary art to a large and diversified audience. In this edition, ArtDate presents many important innovations, focusing on the theme of suspended time, refreshing the attention to the issues of accessibility and participation.

Graham Hudson
Athleisure Antiquity (Fountain)
2020
940 cm x 980 cm x 350 cm
Scaffold, exercise balls, hose pipe, water, steel pool and polypropylene figures; Discobolus, David, Nike and Venus
Commissioned by Wavelength, Shanghai
Courtesy, Monitor Rome, Lisbon, Pereto

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH GRAHAM HUDSON

Do you desire to build a beautiful body? In 1882, circus performer, Friedriech Wilhem Müller toured Italy, inspired by sculptures like Michelangelo’s David’, he would re-mould his body in their image. He re-named himself Eugen Sandow, becoming the world’s first body builder and a symbol of Modernism. He’s in Duchamp’s ‘Large Glass’ and Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’. Schwarzenegger calls Sandow ‘My Hero’, he inspired NASA’s Aerobics and modern Yoga. But the Roman sculptures were copies of lost Greek works, which were more maths algorithm than physical study. Today we chase this tale of classicism, modernism and facsimile to dream the unattainable.

Thanks to the cultural mediators of LISten Project, The Blank cultural program is accessible to deaf people through the mediation in Italian Sign Language.
For information on the possibility of organizing guided tours in Italian Sign Language, write to: educational@theblank.it

INTERVIEW WITH GRAHAM HUDSON
ELISA MUSCATELLI

Elisa Muscatelli – How would you describe your artistic practice to an audience that is experiencing it for the first time?

Graham Hudson – Experiencing any artwork for the first time, should be a little uncomfortable, you should have to pull your core tight, remember to breathe, and accept that discomfort is part of the process towards feeling better, towards understanding something new.

EM – In Classic Greek culture, the harmony of the body was reflected in the soul’s value and vice versa. Today, the body is stifled by an increasingly confused body positivity trend. How do you portray the 21st century’s bodies?

GH – The harmony of the body in Greek culture, was, of course, steeped in class structure, abuse, and slavery. Only a select few got to experience the academy and the luxury of the gymnasium. This is mirrored today in ideas of health and fitness, the juxtaposition, or in fact, the contradiction is what interests me. We know that good nutrition and exercise can make us feel better, at the same time this message exists within a market structure, which promotes
guilt, shame, and aims to get your money, as well let’s homogenize your body, and your behaviour.

EM – In the last few years, the material substance has been remodelling itself, according to the rules of virtual experience. Your account @physical_culture_philosophy presents a new way of seeing physicality. What is your vision on this topic, and what expressive limits/advantages does your social account impose, compared to sculptural practice?

GH – The vision for this Instagram account is to present art, philosophy, science, sport, and fitness as one, just like the Greeks and Romans saw it. In the fitness space, it’s rare to meet someone who knows that the history of the treadmill, is actually a prison punishment. To pivot into the future, the gym is an essential piece of equipment on any space exploration, as the muscles start to atrophy, at the moment they’re out of earth’s gravity. Presenting this on
Instagram enables a direct interdisciplinary approach. In the art world, to sculpt is inherently male, “to be a sculptor”. In the fitness world ‘sculpture’, or to sculpt, is actually gendered female, as it suggests the removal of material, the space in between, is where it’s fun to play.

EM – Your recent activities include the difficult request for an artistic residency in a gym and the installation of your work in a Burberry shop. What do you think about the mixing between high fashion, multinationals, and the art
system?

GH – All of those ecosystems: fashion, art, corporate, fitness, have their own embedded hierarchies and behaviors, invisible rules, and social constructs, mixing them up, and putting them face to face, becomes like raw material in itself. Can a gym be a gallery? Can a fashion house be a vegetable market? Where should art exist, depends on who is asking. What do we expect from art and design anyway? From creative experience? From life itself?

EM – Is there an artistic, literary, or cinematographic reference that had an impact on the development of your artistic and personal career?

GH – So, the easy answer is, of course, yes, many, and while I’d love to name a few, I think what’s significant is that every encounter, influences your development in life. In terms of art, it could be a piece made by a student, by a child, or something from a museum that you’ve travelled far, and waited a long time to see. The artistic encounter is reliant on your experience, what kind of day you’re having, is it raining? Are you hungry? A brief conversation can affect your entire life, the decision to take a bus one day, instead of a train. Or to attend an art lecture that you could have easily missed, all these things form the big picture, and I think that’s kind of the inspiring and exciting thing.
Thank you

The Blank Contemporary Art is pleased to be among the winners of the Italian Council (7′ Edition, 2019), a program that promotes Italian contemporary art in the world of Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Activities and Tourism.

The Ministry awarded the project by the artist Gian Maria Tosatti Diptych of the Trauma. Its aim is to show the controversial aspects of certain European contexts, creating “portraits” of society without personal political positions or arbitrary convictions. Specifically, the artist will investigate the panoramas offered by Ukraine (Odesa Episode) and Turkey (Istanbul Episode), two emblematic places in contemporary Europe, two areas where traumas have strongly altered the territory, its culture, and politic. These traumas will be examined from the intimate and human point of view of the citizen.

The artist will create two environmental installations, one for each area. The final restitution of the entire experience will take place in the city of Bergamo, in an exhibition that will contain the two “episodes” that, being part of the same project, will form the Diptych of Trauma.
The project will be accompanied by the creation of a catalog that will document the exhibitions and will include critical texts aimed at testifying from different perspectives the current state of our civilization and images documenting the interventions. The catalog will be officially presented on the occasion of the exhibition in Bergamo.

Project realized in collaboration with RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts (Rome, Italy), Academy of Fine Arts of Naples (Naples, Italy), IZOLYATSIA. Platform for Cultural Initiatives (Kyiv, Ukraine), Depo (Istanbul, Turkey).

Gian Maria Tosatti (Roma, 1980) is an Italian visual artist.
His projects usually are long term investigations on specific topics related to the concept of identity, from political to the spiritual standpoint. His work consists mainly of large-scale site-specific installation is conceived for entire buildings or urban areas. His practice involves often the communities of the places where he works. In 2015 Art Review included him in their list of the 30 most interesting artists of his generation (Future Greats). In 2014 the international magazine Domus listed the installation My dreams, they’ll never surrender among the ten best shows in the world for that year. Tosatti is also a journalist, columnist for Corriere della Sera and Opera Viva magazine, writer of essays on art and politics.
His work has been shown at the Hessel Museum del CCS BARD (New York, 2014), the MADRE museum (Napoli, 2016), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (New York, 2011), the Galleria Nazionale (Roma, 2017), the Petah Tikva Museum of Art (Petah Tikva, 2017), the Museo Archeologico di Salerno (Salerno, 2014), American Academy in Rome (Roma, 2013), Museo Villa Croce (Genova, 2012), Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Roma, 2008), Chelsea Art Museum (New York, 2009), BJCEM (2014).