What
is “Arte
in memoria”
A biannual contemporary art exhibition
held in the ruins of the Synagogue in Ostia Antica, Rome, one of
the oldest surviving examples of Diaspora Judaism. An integral part
of this grandiose Roman city, it attests to the vitality of the nexus
between identity and multiethnic and multicultural dialogue.
The first
edition was inaugurated on October 16, 2002, the second on January
27, 2005, the third on January 27, 2006 and the fourth on January
28, 2007. The fifth edition of " Arte in Memoria " opened
on January 25, 2009.
Internationally renowned artists are
invited to create site-specific works focused on the theme of memory.
At the end of each edition, some of the works remain in situ: a memory
of the project, the embryo of a contemporary art museum inside
an archaeological site.
The Synagogue is neither neutral nor unbiased like a gallery, a museum
or a renovated industrial space; as a result of its historic and
symbolic centrality, it cancels any indifference towards that which
takes beside it, near it and even far from it. Thus, while the works
absorb and record its particular qualities, the Synagogue, by welcoming
a plurality of artistic languages, renews its vocation as a place
of hospitality, study, dialogue and comparison.
The idea
" Arte in memoria " has its
origins in the "Synagogue Stommeln" Art
Project. Built in 1882 in the austere neo-romanic style, the Stommeln
Synagogue, near Cologne, Germany managed to survive its community
under the most extraordinary circumstances. Reopened to the public
in 1983 after a lengthy and laborious restoration, since 1991 it
is used as an exhibition space: each year, once a year, for a different
artist.
The success of the project, which continues to this day, suggested
its reproposal in an even more evocative and meaningful site such
as that of the Synagogue in Ostia Antica.
The latter can be imagined
as the counterpart to structure in Stommeln: while the building in
Ostia, datable to some time in the 1st century A.D., coincides with
the impetus of the Exile, the structure in Pulheim testifies to the
end of the most active and vital period of the Diaspora in Central-Eastern
Europe. From the Exile to the destruction of the Diaspora to the
creation of the State of Israel: this is the period of time that
is book ended by the two Synagogues. They are now united by contemporary
art, whose development is significantly analogous to that of memory:
discontinuous and fragmentary, easily mixing symbolically related
though temporally distant events, speaking about the past to render
it communicable and effective in the present. Visualising the "challenges
that an analysis of the past determines in the present".
The inauguration
Unlike "Synagogue Stommeln", " Arteinmemoria " is
inaugurated on a fixed and pre-established date. With the exception
of the first edition, opened on October 16, 2002, the anniversary
of the deportation of the Roman Jews, the successive editions begin
on January 27, the Day of Memory established in 2000 by the European
Parliament, a date that corresponds with the opening of the gates
in Auschwitz.
To counter
the risk of a hurried and episodic management that becomes a rhetorical
and repetitive re-proposition of the Day of Memory, where memory,
rather than being an instrument of daily investigation and prevention,
is mythicized and rendered abstract with respect to its historical
context, exposing itself in a self-referential manner, " Arte
in memoria " involves a community of artists, called upon to repopulate
a site so rich with history and memory with a vision rooted in history,
and motivated by contemporaneity. As clearly explained by David Bidussa: "The
Day of Memory is not the day of the dead. January 27 is the day of
memory for the living and not a day for the commemoration of the dead...The
Day of Memory deals with an important part of European cultural history
that our continent has begun to face up to, though late and often with
great difficulty...Memory is an act performed by the living and focused
on tying together individuals in order to construct a public conscience.
Memory has a pragmatic value, it is necesssary for taking action, for
stating that at present we continue to hold on to something from the
past".
The Premises of " Arte in memoria ":
-
memory is not focused exclusively on the past, on recalling and
commemorating past tragedies, but serves rather as a deterrent to
their recurrence in different forms and contexts."
- memory is not fossilised in monuments and rituals, but adapts
to the present, to the themes and dramatic issues faced by contemporary
society, becoming a lesson in the rights of minorities and loyalty
and civic courage in a democratic state. For this reason, the warning
repeated each year during the Passover "In each generation a person
must see himself as if he went out of Egypt", represents an excellent
example of collective memory.
- memory must not be separated from
the historical context in which events have taken place. Due to its
unilateral, partial, wavering and incomplete nature, it is a precious
ally of history: it vitalises and humanises scientific investigation,
ensuring that it does not waste away in a cold and detached analysis
of a chain of events. Even an authentic work of art is a splinter,
a deviation along the linear path of history; its fragmentary nature
contains the seed and the awareness of the totality that precedes
it. It creates a vital, dynamic and problematic dialogue, without
which both memory and art would be reduced to tautology, a sterile
and anachronistic re-proposition of the past.
- " Arte in memoria " does not ask artists to provide a "thematic" work
of art or a work "in memory of", but to create a short circuit between
their personal language and the Synagogue, concentrated in history,
memory, art, study and culture. The result can be seen in the over
thirty works realised to date: recognisable as the "work of", they
contain a semantic and interpretative surplus that is donated by
the site that, thanks to these artists and their works, returns
to life.