Starting from spring 2020, in response to the prolonged closures of museums and art spaces to the public, the Maramotti Collection expanded its online activities, imagining different ways to tell its story and generate broad perspectives on its heritage, creating new tools to introduce, accompany, and deepen a direct and physical relationship with the artworks when this will be possible again.
The YouTube channel of the Collection has been reorganized and enriched with original content.
In addition to continuing the production of video interviews with the artists featured in exhibitions and temporary projects – among the most recent, ruby onyinyechi amanze and “Mollino/Insides” – long recordings of in-depth conversations between the artists and groups of interns from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice have been made available, along with video documentation of experiences developed over the years in the field of dance with the Theatres of Reggio Emilia and Aterballetto.
Some new series of videos created in the past year have also been presented.
#artistwords is connected both to more historical works from the Collection – featuring thoughts and writings by Licini, Zorio, Anselmo – and to small carte blanche, for which artists including Beatrice Pediconi, Flavio de Marco, Claudia Losi, Mona Osman, Jason Dodge, Alessandro Pessoli have been invited to send us a thought in the form of a video about their present and their research, each of which has been elaborated in a different and personal way.
Open Storage is a series launched in late March 2021 that focuses on the less visible artworks from the Collection, stored in its archive, “open” to the public for the first time – albeit in a virtual format. The first videos are dedicated to works by Matthew Ritchie, Matthew Day Jackson, and Kent Henricksen, followed by Lutz & Guggisberg, Nicky Hoberman, and Ann Craven, presented by the Collection Director, Sara Piccinini.
At the beginning of June, some videos related to the library and documentary heritage will be published: Open Library will become a tool to discover artist books and rare materials, accompanied by the Library Manager, Fosca Ugoletti.
The Collection has also recently launched the project Artpod – art listens, in collaboration with Doppiozero, a cultural magazine and space dedicated to the development of innovative cultural projects, collaborating with writers, critics, journalists, researchers, and scholars from various disciplines.
Artpod consists of a series of podcasts about emblematic works from the permanent collection, narrated through the words of the authors from Doppiozero and interpreted by the actors of the Teatro delle Albe in Ravenna. Among the audio contributions already available on the profiles YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcast of the Collection, as well as on the Doppiozero website:
– Claudio Franzoni, scholar of ancient art, on “Nero con punti rossi” by Alberto Burri
– Ermanna Montanari, actress and founder of the Teatro delle Albe, on “Più vicino agli dei” by Enzo Cucchi
– Massimo Recalcati, psychoanalyst, on “Caspar David Friedrich” by Claudio Parmiggiani
– Silvia Bottani, journalist and contemporary art writer, on “The Farewell Painting” by David Salle
Contributions will continue with Riccardo Venturi, Alessandra Sarchi, Marco Belpoliti, and Rocco Ronchi respectively on Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Evgeny Antufiev, and the Atelier dell’Errore BIG.
Throughout March 2021, in the month of International Women’s Rights Day, artist Emma Talbot was the protagonist of the CIRCA project with a series of four animated films, created in collaboration with the Collezione Maramotti, Whitechapel Gallery, and the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, of which Talbot is the latest winner. Every evening in March at 20:21, her Four Visions for a Hopeful Future were projected on the iconic London screen of Piccadilly Lights and are now available on the CIRCA YouTube channel.
The CIRCA commission to Talbot arrived just before the start of a six-month residency as part of the Max Mara Art Prize, organized by the Collezione Maramotti. In accordance with travel restrictions and following government recommendations, Talbot will stay in Rome, Reggio Emilia, and Sicily in 2021 to conduct research dedicated to classical mythology, textile craftsmanship, and permaculture.
The Instagram and Facebook channels of the Collezione will follow Talbot’s Italian residency, as well as provide constant updates on the initiatives and work in progress of the Collection to a wide audience of enthusiasts, sharing special moments and unusual insights such as #MuseumAtNight.
