CURA.

RACHEL WHITEREAD
…And the Animals Were Sold

For the sixth consecutive year, GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo returns to occupy the prestigious Palazzo della Ragione venue, in the beating heart of the historic city center, with a new exhibition featuring the internationally renowned British artist Rachel Whiteread, who in the year of Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture will present a brand new installation conceived in relation to the city of Bergamo and in conversation with the architecture and history of Palazzo della Ragione itself.

Ever fascinated by those spaces that form part of our daily lives yet which are so often overlooked, for the Sala delle Capriate Rachel Whiteread proposes an environmental installation made up of sixty chairs, constituting the materialization of the empty space lying between the legs of two different models of chairs.

The sculptures are produced using various types of stone found in the building materials of both Palazzo della Ragione and Piazza Vecchia, such as the Sarnico stone in the façade of the Palazzo della Ragione and the Zandobbio marble in the Contarini Fountain, which are still extracted from quarries near Bergamo. In this way, the artist aims to establish a close relationship with the territory and its history, as well as with the architecture of the venue hosting the exhibition itself.

The title of the installation is evocative both of the pandemic—the words “And the Animals Were Sold” bring to mind the image of Asian markets where animals of all sorts are traded and which many scholars claim to be at the origin of the coronavirus mutation—and of any passing conversation of which one might almost inadvertently catch a few words.

Indeed, the exhibition constitutes Whiteread’s first opportunity to express herself artistically about the dramatic and alienating experience of the pandemic. For the artist, Bergamo marks one of the first experiences of a return to pre-pandemic life, when travel was an absolutely normal condition. And the experience had by the artist on her first visit to the city struck her to the point that she began to think of her intervention as one related to the tragic events of the initially uncontrolled spread of the pandemic in the Bergamo area.

The sixty sculptures that make up the installation thus evoke the presence and at the same time the absence of as many people. As in many of her works, in fact, the emptiness that is filled in these sculptures “is there in place of something else”: in this specific case, of a person or a multitude of people. The arrangement devised by the artist refers to the requirement of social distancing, where the chairs are placed in a grid two meters apart, emphasizing the silent dimension of the void: while accessible, it is still disorienting in its almost deafening presence. The layout, on the other hand, refers to people in conversation when the chairs are placed more freely, forming small groups, alluding to their newfound proximity.

Starting from these considerations, Rachel Whiteread came up with an installation also designed to shed light on the history of Palazzo della Ragione, which once constituted the place where representatives of the municipality would meet to discuss, debate, and legislate. But also on the present, given that the Sala delle Capriate overlooks the famous Piazza Vecchia, which, particularly in the summertime, becomes a gathering place and meeting point for both city residents and tourists alike.

The sixty chairs ultimately constitute an invitation to visitors to pause and bring to life the Sala, experiencing it as a place of exchange and relationship, of closeness and sharing.

THE IMPERMANENT COLLECTION #4
Curated by Sara Fumagalli, Valentina Gervasoni, A. Fabrizia Previtali  

The Impermanent Collection (La Collezione Impermanente) is a research, exhibition, and workshop platform that since 2018 has highlighted the hybrid nature of the GAMeC Collection, reflecting on its dynamic and at times contradictory character. After the first installment of the project—which traced the history of the Museum’s Collection—and the second—which placed the Collection in dialogue with a nucleus of works confiscated in Lombardy and destined for the Gallery—the third exhibition of the cycle was conceived as an active display to coincide with the celebrations dedicated to GAMeC’s thirtieth anniversary, and presented the public with a rich selection of works from the museum’s storerooms produced by artists of various generations, from the 1990s right up to the present day.

In 2022, The Impermanent Collection #3.0 triggered a reflection on the role of the visitor and his or her relationship with the museum, starting from a number of questions: what kind of dialogue with the public does the museum wish to establish around the collections, viewed as a shared heritage? What experience of it should be offered and with what purpose? What role should be attributed to visitors in the presentation and construction of the museum collection?

The exhibition aimed to emphasize the dialogue with visitors, who were called upon to play an active role through the declaration of their preferences in relation to the works on show: which work they would have liked to see again in a subsequent display, and why. The materials collected were subjected to careful analysis by the museum, and on the occasion of The Impermanent Collection #4, a new display will be presented on the basis of this fruitful exchange held with the visiting public.

In particular, this participatory designing of the new exhibition path will feature nine thematic rooms each revolving around one of the works chosen as the subject of visitors’ preferences. The works will thus spearhead innovative dialogues with other works selected by the exhibition curators with a view to highlighting different perspectives on each work and possible new interpretations of it.

In the year of the Italian Capital of Culture, the works in the exhibition also intend to pay homage to the city of Bergamo, in the experiences of local artists who have portrayed it and in those of international artists who, through their artistic research, have established a relationship with the city and with GAMeC, or again through the work of artists who have studied and taught at the G. Carrara Academy of Fine Arts, restoring the image of the lively cultural context that has long characterized the city.