RADIS PRESENTA LE MASCHE

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The new public art project of Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT inaugurates the site-specific artwork le masche by the artist Giulia Cenci, as a conclusion of its first edition. The opening is on Sunday October 6^th at 11.30 a.m.

The work is located in the Chiot Rosa clearing, in Rittana (CN). Cenci’s work consists of aluminium sculptures from the casts of birch trees bordering the meadow, combined with elements of her sculptural language. Wolf & mannequin heads, intertwined with vine branches create hybrid figures – trees with flowers, humans with animals. The work is the result of an intense interaction with the place, with the narratives, history and imagery that have passed through and shaped it. Her sculptures stretch out among the birch trees and help outline an ever-changing landscape.

The title of the work refers to the masche, figures of the Piedmontese peasant tradition that Nuto Revelli also described in his texts, honouring all those marginalised because of their diversity.

The first chapter of the four-year Radis project was developed in cooperation with Fondazione CRT in Chiot Rosa, in the Municipality of Rittana, 1,200 metres asl. The place is steeped deep in history, conveying a strong symbolic value, linked to the Resistance: the nearby Borgata Paraloup was in fact the first headquarters of the Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Freedom) partisan brigades in the Cuneo area.

Giulia Cenci’s le masche develops a new imaginary sphere in this place: grown at night or standing as witnesses of facts, memories and stories of the place, the sculptures become presences, figures that seem to observe what happens under and around them with curiosity and amazement, on the meadow, around the trees and among the structures designed and installed to harbour moments of rest and grouping for residents and visitors. Created especially for Chiot Rosa, Cenci’s work will remain on permanent loan to the Municipality of Rittana.

‘The inauguration of the work ‘le masche’ is a point of arrival but also the starting point of the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea’s Radis project: the work by artist Giulia Cenci is the first step of a four-year project involving local communities and players in cultural and artistic production,’ says Anna Maria Poggi, President of Fondazione CRT. ’Fondazione CRT is convinced that art and culture are powerful tools to strengthen the area and its human capital, a precious bridge between stories and people especially when they go beyond the institutional walls.’

‘I am excited and proud of the result of the first edition of Radis,’ said Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, President of Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT. ‘Giulia Cenci’s work is the practical, poetic story, the result of a long path that Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT undertook with the intention of rooting an artwork to the place it was intended for. le masche is a site-specific artwork emerging from a slow meditated process, led by the artist and curator Marta Papini. It was based on the involvement of the community, schools with the contribution of professionals and expert artisans. I am sure that the sculptures of this sensitive and imaginative artist will inhabit the welcoming clearing of Chiot Rosa, giving Rittana and all of us a new and open landscape where stories, fairy tales and fantasies, humans, trees, stones and animals can coexist’.

‘The fruitful collaboration with Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT has been able to build, in this first year of the Radis project, an artistic path of great value, innovative and particularly endorsed’ comments Mauro Gola, president of Fondazione CRC. ‘Art and culture confirm their strategic role for the development and regeneration of mountain territories and their ability to activate local communities, with unexpected and highly valuable results.’

The first edition of the project was curated by Marta Papini, who invited Giulia Cenci to work in the Chiot Rosa area because of her interest in places on the border between nature and human built areas and her research focused on the relationships between human beings, animals and the environment. The artist adopts recycled materials, such as waste from the agriculture or car wrecks, and casts of prototypes with animal and human likenesses. Cenci assembles and melts these fragments into complex sculptures where manual skill and serial production coexist side by side.

‘le masche is the result of the Chiot Rosa stories: tales from the Resistance, tales of fear, joy, stories of love and hate, of animals and plants. In her work, Giulia Cenci pays homage to all creatures marginalised because of their difference, now as in the past’ said Marta Papini.

Giulia Cenci (Cortona, 1988) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, subsequently obtained a MA in Fine Arts by the St. Joost Academy, Den Bosch-Breda, NL, and attended deAteliers residency program, Amsterdam, NL. Over the years, her work has been appreciated in Italy and abroad in numerous important solo and group exhibitions. Cenci was included in the 59th Venice Biennale, has exhibited in New York, Lyon, Amsterdam, and was awarded the Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel 2019. She was a finalist for the 2020 MAXXI BVLGARI PRIZE and for the 2023/24 Future Generation Art Prize.

‘Chiot Rosa’s stillness seems to be the bearer of an invisible story of refuge and struggle, contrasts and contradictions belonging to the development of our country and its difficulties,’ said Giulia Cenci. “I couldn’t help but think that here people gathered and fought, found shelter as well as death.

‘Thanks to the Radis project promoted by Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT, Giulia Cenci’s sculptural work will make Chiot Rosa – already steeped deep in history and natural beauty – an extraordinarily attractive place, able to convey new suggestions and emotions to all those who will visit it,’ said Giacomo Doglio, Mayor of Rittana.

The Radis project – from the Piedmontese word for root – was conceived with the aim of enriching the Piedmontese territory with a heritage of public art works for the local community, interfacing with educational programmes, public meetings and exhibition projects that return part of the collection of the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT to the community. In fact, the inauguration of the work was preceded by a summer public programme consisting of numerous events in Cuneo, Rittana and Paraloup: Marta Papini and Giulia Cenci took part in the conversation Pane del Bosco (Bread of the Woods); Nicolas Ballario and Rodrigo D’Erasmo performed the show LIVES! La vita di Louise Bourgeois in parole e in musica (The life of Louise Bourgeois in words and music); Treti Galaxie curated the sixth edition of Supercondominio; in collaboration with Fondazione Nuto Revelli, a conference I paesaggi nella crisi tra memoria, ecologia e azione. Ecomemoria e progetti di futuro sostenibile (Landscapes of a crisis – straddling memory, ecology and action. Ecomemory and projects for a sustainable future) was also organised, with Mia Canestrini, Matteo Caccia and Alessandra Viola, among others. Lastly, the mapping of art in the public space in the Province of Cuneo curated by Vittoria Martini was presented by the author in conversation with Francesca Comisso, followed by the meeting I testimony de ‘Il mondo dei vinti’ and of the ‘L’anello forte’ (The witnesses of ‘The world of the defeated’ and ‘The strong ring’) with photographer Paola Agosti.

The opening of le masche will also be marked by the second chapter of the group exhibition L’opera al nero, which includes works from Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT and Fondazione CRC, curated by Marta Papini and Leonardo Pietropaolo, with Giulia Cenci, at the Centro Civico e Culturale di Rittana. The first chapter of the exhibition, which opened on 14 July 2024, focused on the relationship between humans and other living beings, observing the relationship between the body and the outside world, with works by Lorenza Boisi, Steffani Jemison, Lin May Saeed, Letícia Parente and Tabita Rezaire. In the second chapter of the exhibition the focus is on each body’s experience, in relation to technology and processes of change and transformation: the exhibition is enriched with works by Ed Atkins, Roberto Cuoghi, Anne Imhof, Seth Price, James Richards and Alessandra Spranzi. The exhibition, which benefits from the Big Broker Insurance Group – Ciaccio Arte’s technical sponsorship, will be open every Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm until November 10^th.

Opening
October 2024, 6^th, 11.30 a.m.
Radura del Chiot Rosa, Rittana (Cuneo)

The public opening of le masche will be on Sunday October 6^th at 11.30 a.m. in the presence of the artist Giulia Cenci, curator Marta Papini as well as local government and authorities, with an introduction by Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (President of Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT), Mauro Gola (President of Fondazione CRC) and Giacomo Doglio (Mayor of Rittana). The day will also include a musical performance by Bandakadabra, a light lunch offered at the Rittana Community Centre, as well as educational activities for families organised by Associazione Feliz with La Scatola Gialla, and a visit at the exhibition L’opera al nero.

A free shuttle service (subject to availability) will be offered between Turin and Rittana, departing from opposite the Porta Susa Railway Station in Corso Bolzano 44, near bus bays 11 and 13, at 8.30 a.m. and returning at 5 p.m.. Booking is required by writing to progetti@fondazioneartecrt.it. By car: the road to Chiot Rosa will be closed, so it is advisable to park in Rittana and use the available local shuttles.

For information: www.radis-crt.it