Conserving the Future -The Book
curated and edited by Chiara Bertola,
in Italian and English, published by bruno, Venice (2023)
Book presentation and conversation with the curator
Conserving the Future is a recently published book that bears witness to 25 years of curating contemporary art in the same place: the Querini Stampalia Foundation of Venice.
25 years: a lengthy period in which the curator Chiara Bertola has seen the metamorphoses and rebirth of this ancient palace thanks to the different visions of the artists projected in its spaces, who have each transformed it into multiple places.
Conserving the Future is a program and a work method. Its foundation is the relationship with time, with the past and with history because in each project the historical place becomes a subject that asks to be viewed, recognized and listened to, and then open to dialogue with the present. Conserving the Future is a program and a work method. Its foundation is the relationship with time, with the past and with history because in each project the historical place becomes a subject that asks to be viewed, recognized and listened to, and then open to dialogue with the present.
Chiara Bertola writes about the place and the work in a single text that covers the site-specific exhibitions between 1997 and 2022: the questions, ideas and discoveries made alongside the artists, experiencing the creative process with them. She defines a curatorial line that lies outside of the usual canonical and consolidated confines, focusing on concepts of ‘precariousness’ and ‘instability’. The artists act as ferrymen between these worlds, revealing fractures, inventing connections and showing something that otherwise risked being lost or never seen.
The book contains essays by Chiara Bertola, Boris Groys and Marta Savaris, a wide selection of photos and in-depth analyses related to each of the site-specific exhibitions that have seen 30 artists involved in the past 25 years: Joseph Kosuth, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Giuseppe Caccavale, Lothar Baumgarten, Mauro Sambo, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Giulio Paolini, Margarita Andreu, Elisabetta Di Maggio, Remo Salvadori, Kiki Smith, Georges Adéagbo, Stefano Arienti, Maria Morganti, Mariateresa Sartori, Mona Hatoum, Anita Sieff, Marisa Merz, Qiu Zhijie, Haris Epaminonda, Jimmie Durham, Giovanni Anselmo, Roman Opałka, Danh Vō, Isamu Noguchi, Park Seo-Bo.
For the Fondo Luigi Ghirri: Yona Friedman/Jean-Baptiste Decavèle, Paolo Icaro, Andrea Zanzotto, Giuseppe Caccavale.
The publishing project is promoted by Fondazione Querini Stampalia (Venice) in collaboration with CCC OD Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré (Tours) and ifa Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (Berlin). The project is supported by the Italian Council (10th edition, 2021), program to promote Italian contemporary art in the world by the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Chiara Bertola (born 1961 in Turin) is Curator of Contemporary Art Program at the Querini Stampalia Foundation of Venice since 1999. She was artistic director at the Hangar Bicocca in Milan from 2009 to 2012, creator and curator of the FURLA Art Prize, curator of the Venice Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007, co-curator of the 15th edition of the Rome Quadriennale, 2008, President of the City of Venice’s Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, 1996-1998. Founding member of Love Difference (2000), Artistic Movement for an “Intermediterranean Politic” (together with Michelangelo Pistoletto and others), she has curated many exhibitions both in Italy and abroad.
Publications: ‘Curare l’arte’ (2008) for Mondadori/Electa on the figure of the curator (2008); the book of the exhibition project at the Hangar Bicocca ‘Vulnerable lands – a growing exhibition’ (Corraini, 2011); ‘Walking along the care of art’, and her latest ‘Conserving the future’.
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