Friday 26 June 2015 Contemporary Evening Nour returns with its second three-day event that Spazio Nour dedicates to contemporary art, as an opportunity for artistic and cultural exchange. The focal point of this project is multiculturalism. Every month artists from different countries are involved, whose meeting at Spazio Nour stimulates an artistic creation that invades the surrounding space, involving the famous inner courtyard of Viale Bligny 42. In this "world building", a cauldron of different cultures that meet in their daily coexistence, diversity becomes a possibility of union in a context of exchange, in which art wants to act as a communicator. And this was precisely the aspect that emerged after the experience of the first Contemporary Evening Nour last month, in which artists from different countries took turns over three days, with different projects and installations. One of them, Rahman Hak-Hagir, stayed for an artistic residency at Spazio Nour, during which he developed various projects involving the inhabitants of the building, to whom he dedicated a work that he will present at Spazio Nour in July.
On Friday 26th, 9pm, Mahmoud Saleh Mohamadi presents Performance #02, part of the series he began at Spazio Nour in July 2014. On this occasion, his artistic project aims to involve the entire courtyard of Viale Bligny 42, the artist invites participants to bring a food of their own culture to share.
On Saturday 27th, at 9 pm, Akiko Kozato & Michael Barletta will bring their performance to the courtyard of Viale Bligny 42, in which the voice of the opera singer joins Barletta's guitar. The performative-musical project combines 20th-century tradition with contemporary pieces composed especially for the duo.
Sunday 28, 9 pm, Raffaella Menchetti will perform with Cecilia Molardi, Annalisa Boscarino (performer) and Silvia Minardi (harp) in Identity. The performance project investigates one of the topos that has recurred in artistic and intellectual reflection since the 20th century: the disintegration of individual identity.
PROGRAM
Friday 26th June
PERFORMANCE #02 - MAHMOUD SALEH MOHAMMADI Mahmoud Saleh Mohammadi's Performance #02 is part of the series of performative works that began with Performance #00 (July 2014), with which the artist opened the doors of his studio to the public, inaugurating the creative activity within Spazio Nour. He then invited a select group of artists and intellectuals to Performance #01 (October 2014), a closed-door action in which the eleven guests took part in a symbolic dinner, where Mahmoud Saleh Mohammadi, working with the performer Francesca Lolli, invited them to reflect on the role of the artist, and of art more generally, in the contemporary world. The artist decided to continue his project of reflection on art and its social function, this time opening the dinner to the public and taking the table outside Spazio Nour, in the courtyard of Viale Bligny 42, which will become the new ground for this artistic sharing of ideas. The world-famous building becomes a place for meeting and nourishment, thanks to the collective performative action: a table to which everyone is invited to participate, starting from the apartment blocks and ending with those who have never had the courage to enter this fortress. The artist invites the participants to bring a food of their own tradition to share with the other diners, so as to create an opportunity for exchange, in which diversity dialogues, creating a common ground.
Saturday 27th June
AKIKO KOZATO & MICHAEL BARLETTA The two artists present their musical project, which spans different musical experiences from the 20th century to the present day. The combination of the voice of Akiko Kozato, an opera singer who completed her training at the Teatro alla Scala, and the guitar of Michael Barletta, a graduate of Milan's Conservatorio Verdi, creates a cross-cutting journey through the tradition of 20th-century composers and contemporary music, touching on different styles and genres. The popular melodies of Britten, Rodrigo, Garcia Lorca and De Falla are reinterpreted, assimilating English and Spanish traditions to create new musical forms, in which the nuances of the composers' homelands remain perceptible. The repertoire of their performance also includes Castelnuovo Tedesco's Divan, the composer's last work and artistic testament, a piece for voice and guitar with words by the Jewish poet Moses-Ibn-Ezra who lived in the Middle Ages, reflecting on the theme of memory. In Kozato and Barletta's project the past continually dialogues with the present, works by authors of the early 20th century are reinterpreted and united with a composition created especially for the duo: Imago, by Mauro Di Vincenzo, in which the text, built on an alternation of English and Italian, paints a brief moment in which the visual and dramatic aspects merge in an ephemeral scene full of pietas and maternal nostalgia.
Sunday 28 June
IDENTITY - RAFFAELLA MENCHETTI Identity is the performance with which Raffaella Menchetti investigates the theme of the search for identity, as a topos of the contemporary age. The project presented at Contemporary Evening Nour explores the mechanisms with which the individual confronts liquid reality and the effects this has on the self. Performative action, dance and music come together, creating a broken dialogue through the performance of three performers (Raffaella Menchetti, Cecilia Molardi, Annalisa Boscarino) and a musician (Silvia Minardi), who will perform a composition created specifically for this performance. The set design and lighting project have been taken care of by the artist Raquel Jimenez Herrera. Identity and its processes of acquisition and loss are among the main focuses of Raffaella Menchetti's artistic activity. The artist has investigated these themes through different forms of expression, both with video-installations and through performative action, which she has taken to various countries (Shed Identity, held in Istanbul). The exhibition will feature other video works by the artist, with which he wants to reflect on the different facets that the theme of identity offers. For the performance Identity the artist would like to thank: Cosimo Damiano for the lights, Francesca Politi and Luca Cuomo for their participation in the creation of the project.
