Ho visto un re (The King and I) at Palazzo Reale, Milan
Arthub began cooperating with Aurora Museum in 2013 with Xinlu (New Roads), a long-term project initiated with Querini Stampalia. For three years, Xinlu inaugurated in a series of artistic interventions aimed at connecting the collection of Aurora Museum with contemporary art. In 2014, with the support of Alcantara®, the group exhibition The Making of A Museum placed contemporary art in dialogue with the institution once again.
A year later, the three-way union including Arthub, Aurora and Alcantara, continued with Unordinary Space – Liu Shiyuan, Yin Xiuzhen, and Gentucca Bini. This was one of many exhibitions initiated with Arthub that would highlight the material’s versatility. With Alcantara, Digestive Cavity by Yin Xiuzhen – the focal installation of the show – became a spatial experience, intended to strengthen the physical connection between the antiques museum and the public sphere.
For another iteration, this time in the Prince’s Apartment of Palazzo Reale in Milan, Arthub has teamed up with Alcantara.
Presenting: The King and I, Alcantara® and 9 artists reinvent the Prince’s Apartment
Time: 20 September – 23 October, 2016
Curated by Davide Quadrio and Massimo Torrigiani
Participating Artists: Maurizio Anzeri, Arthur Arbesser, Paola Besana, Gentucca Bini, Matthew Herbert, Taisuke Koyama, Francesco Simeti, Adrian Wong and Shane Aspegren
The King And I is an exhibition sponsored and produced by the Municipality of Milan – Culture, Palazzo Reale (Royal Palace) and Alcantara, which will be held in the rooms of the Prince’s Apartment.
The group exhibition at Palazzo Reale presents a contemporary take on the atmosphere of a space that is full of historical connotations, with a project conceived to engage and amaze. The King and I presents works created by nine international artists from different creative worlds. This encounter between art, theatre, music and fashion creates an experimental path exploring materiality, craftmanship and 10 rooms in the Prince’s Apartment.
The artists’ wrote a collective narrative using fairy-tale characters: kings, queens, princes and princesses, frogs and labyrinths. The exhibition take us on a journey, through the flight of our imaginations and the artists’ individual stories. The strands of this multi-faceted exhibition dialogue with the apartment’s architecture and decor, in a lively play of references and superimpositions, guided by the curators.
“Thanks to an original commission the site-specific project has engaged the artists and us in careful and playful reflection. Rather than considering it a ‘window’ or ‘set’, we conceived it as ‘spirit’ and ‘place’. A starting point that stimulated everyone to reinvent the space and the material in ways that we at first found surprising,” says Massimo Torrigiani.
The Italian title of the exhibition Ho visto un re (The King and I) aims straight at the heart of Milan, quoting the famous song by Enzo Jannacci, with its easy-going rhythm it is an ironic stance against the arrogance of the powerful. A spirit that here, with art and with the same fairy-tale charm of the song, we can reappropriate a space that was once for the few, in an effort to reclaim and return it to everyone for free and in contemporary garb.
“This rarely inhabited dwelling, together with the opportunity the artists had to meet and be together, talk and work deeply with the material, has been a source of inspiration for everyone. This has given rise to combinations, overlaps and partnerships, freeing an all-new imagination, a healthy and irreverent creativity,” comments Davide Quadrio.
Make sure to visit Palazzo Reale to see a selection of original large scale works – including sculpture, photographs, fashion, and installation – to witness a continuous reinvention of a historically classic venue. Entry will be free of charge.
For an extended press release, including artist and curator biographies see here.
THE PRINCE’S APARTMENT
Composed of ten rooms in the south-west wing of the Royal Palace in Milan, the Prince’s Apartment is a significant example of an early-19th-century royal residence, which has reached us virtually intact. Established as a result of the Napoleonic reorganisation of the palace in 1805, it was in 1830 designated as the Appartamento di Riserva per Principi (Apartment Reserved for the Princes) for the little princes and archdukes resulting from the marriage of Ranier Joseph of Austria to Elisabeth of Savoy. The renovation work, supervised by architect Giacomo Tazzini – which included the rooms’ sophisticated decoration, mainly in the Restoration style – was concluded in 1838 soon after Emperor Ferdinand I arrived in Milan to take the crown as King of Lombardy-Venetia.
THE ROYAL PALACE
The Apartment is reached via the Atrio delle Quattro Colonne (Atrium of the Four Columns) and the current Prima Sala degli Arazzi (First Tapestry Hall) of the Royal Palace. The seat of city government from the late Middle Ages onwards, the palace was a major political centre under the Torriani, Visconti and Sforza dynasties. There was a lavish court life. In the 18th century the palace passed under the rule of the Austrian empire. It underwent restoration in the Neoclassical style under the supervision of Giuseppe Piermarini, including the monumental staircase at the entrance, a new façade on Piazza Duomo, and the modern-day Piazzetta Reale. This former residence of kings and queens, richly embellished by leading decorators, sculptors, painters and carpenters, was transferred to the State in 1919 and parts of it were opened to the public. Bombing raids in 1943 destroyed the greater part of the palace’s treasures. Under the auspices of Milan City Council and the Sovrintendenza per i Beni Archeologici, reconstruction and restoration work continued for more than twenty years until the Royal Palace finally reopened as an exhibition centre.
