Art Mapping Piemonte is a project organised in collaboration with the Piedmont Region with the support of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, to help people discover contemporary art away from traditional exhibition models.
The initiative produced by Fondazione Torino Musei and curated by Ilaria Bonacossa for Artissima calls for the creation of three site-specific installations by international contemporary artists, and the production of a map that highlights the most outstanding works of public contemporary art in the Piedmont territory. The results converged in a guide edited for Artissima by Vittoria Martini, produced and distributed thanks to the cooperation of Artribune, and featuring food and wine recommendations provided by Gambero Rosso.
Following the opening in 2019 of the first installation by Mario Airò (Pavia, Italy, 1961) at the deconsecrated church of San Remigio, founded in 1033 as a monastery complex at Parodi (AL), in 2020 Artissima curates the second installation of the Art Mapping Piemonte project, Griglie d’oro. At the water tower of Novello, a structure in reinforced concrete still in use in the hills of Barolo, a heritage zone listed by UNESCO, the artist Olivier Mosset – one of the most radical representatives of a contemporary way of painting that undermines the ideal of artistic originality through objectivity and serial production – decided to not disguise the architectural structure, but to enhance it by painting the grilles, the iron gate and the roof in gold. A minimal but yet poetic intervention aimed at underlining the importance of these structures for this territory.
The last installation inaugurating in 2022 is by artist Zhang Enli (Jilin, China, 1965) who painted a fresco in the rural chapel of San Rocco Montabone (AT), facing the vineyards of Brachetto d’Acqui. By borrowing the colours of the surrounding natural setting, A Cheerful Person reates a sort of “pareidolia”, transforming the façade of the church into a smiling face, delicately blurring the architectural features of the façade with his quick brushstrokes to form a unified whole.
The updated version of the guide is available in digital format here below.
