STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN.-In connection with Moderna Museet’s 50th Anniversary in 2008, three exhibitions will focus on cultural ‘hotspots’ around the world in the 60’s: Rio de Janeiro, Milan/Turin and Los Angeles. The idea is to explore the period when Moderna Museet was created from an international perspective, by featuring a representative selection of works of art, architecture, design, literature, film and music never before shown together in Sweden.

Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, Time & Place: Milan/Turin, 1958-1968 investigates a decisive moment in Italian art, focusing on these two cities as emblematic places of birth for a new identity. The exhibition explores the shift from the ‘Informale’ to the Arte povera, in a unique selection which gives a contemporary reflection of the period.

Proposing a radically new perspective, Time & Place: Milan/Turin, 1958-1968 is intended to concentrate on issues developed by this environment, such as the monochrome, the zero degree of signs, and the tabula rasa of conceptual practice.

The Italian avant-garde was recognized, already in the 1960s, by former Moderna Museet director Pontus Hultén, who acknowledged the leading roles held by Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana, who in 1967 presented a solo show at Moderna Museet.

In the first section, the exhibition presents the situation ‘beyond the Informale’, with the birth of Italian experiences, internationally known, of formal and chromatic reduction, through the use of monochrome and the conception of space in researches beyond the surface: next to Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni, artists such as Enrico Castellani, Dadamaino, Gianni Colombo, Agostino Bonalumi, Paolo Scheggi, Mario Nigro, Rodolfo Aricò are represented.

The second part of the exhibition has a documentary tone, presenting the moment of artistic transition from Milan to Turin, reconstructing seminal events and exhibiting sculptural objects, photographs, invitation cards, catalogues from the period. This section will also explore the importance of the new sculpture as object, presenting, among others, Manzoni’s Linee (Lines) and Merda d’artista (Artist’s Shit), sculptures by Fausto Melotti and Lucio Fontana, works by Vincenzo Agnetti and Gastone Novelli together with pieces by Valerio Adami, Enrico Baj, and Lucio del Pezzo.

The third part features artworks which anticipate and conflate the developments of Arte povera, an approach based on incorporating unconventional materials with a prevailing conceptual dimension. This is a crucial moment when the frame of reference is moved from post-war Milan to the pulsating social reality of Turin, which sees the emergence of future masters such as Giulio Paolini, Luciano Fabro, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mario and Marisa Merz, Gianni Piacentino, Carolrama, Alighiero Boetti, Giuseppe Penone, Giovanni Anselmo, Giorgio Griffa, Paolo Icaro and others.

In connection with the exhibition, Moderna Museet will also host a programme of films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and other Italian film-makers. Curator: Luca Massimo Barbero, Venice, Italy. Project curator: Cecilia Widenheim, Moderna Museet. Time & Place: Milan/Turin, 1958-1968 is sponsored by Scania.