THE THIRD DAY
exhibition curated by Didi Bozzini
Parma, Governor's Palace
20 April – 1 July 2018
PRESS RELEASE
From 20 April to 1 July 2018,the Governor’s Palace, in the heart of Parma’s historic centre, will host a unique exhibition, The Third Day, curated by Didi Bozzini and promoted by the Municipality of Parma. This series of events will provide the city with the opportunity to reflect on themes related to the environment, sustainability, and man–nature relationship.
The Third Day, produced and organized by Arkage (Artattack Group), a Benefit Corporation and B Corp certified, is the first in Italy to establish a ‘for benefit’ approach: 50% of the ticket sales will be given back to the Municipality of Parma to finance “Green Km”, an environmental sustainability project.
“In the year when Parma has been named Italy’s 2020 Capital of Culture, we are proud to host some of the most important and renown contemporary artists. This means that Parma is alive with culture, and dynamic and vital in all that it has to offer” says Federico Pizzarotti, Mayor of Parma, adding that “We believe that the relationship between man and nature is a core point: art and politics deal with the subject of nature from two different points of view. I believe now is time to bring some art and awareness into the social and political debate. We all need to talk about nature as the key element of our lives. I think that The Third Day has set these objectives: to show the power of nature and the need to place it again at the centre of everyone’s thoughts through beauty and quality.” And Michele Guerra, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Parma remarks that: “The Third Day exhibition is the first important event since Parma has been named Italy’s Capital of Culture for the year 2020. This is not just a show that brings to the city some of our most important contemporary artists to talk about the relationship between art and nature, but it is also a broader conversation about our future, our relationship with the environment, something that has become an inescapable theme for all Western societies. This is what The Third Day wants to be: a visually beautiful exhibition, but more importantly, a source of beautiful concepts. A discussion that must continue in the city for many months, also after the exhibition will be travelling elsewhere.”
The Third Daytells about the world through images, where art is a privileged access portal to knowledge and enjoyment of Nature.
Not a declaration of environmental militancy, but a journey through the vicissitudes of an exhausted planet. A narration that takes the spectator from Creation (meant as the genesis of the world) to Destruction (or at least to the risk of its destruction) told through analogies and not logic, visions and not concepts, amazement and not speculation.
A journey where art is proposed as the main path the spirit followsto cross through nature and enter its precious mystery, as man is the only animal capable of seeing nature as a work of art and therefore of creating forms that reflect it.
It is a cathartic itinerary through the works of contemporary artists that starts from The Third Day of Genesis, featuring the appearance of life (Genesis 1,3), then it goes through the creation, the destruction of nihilism, until a return to nature.
Didi Bozzini writes: “Today the risk of catastrophe is real, tangible day after day... Maybe the time has come to wonder whether a path to a new Eden can be found only thanks to the wondrous eyes of artists, of those who try to express the quality of nature without weighing its mere quantity. The path to a garden where imagination replaces calculation, the beautiful replaces the useful and the good replaces the plenty.
The 40 exhibiting artists: Marina Abramovic, Jane Alexander, Giovanni Anselmo, Nobuyoshi Araki, Roger Ballen, Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Alighiero Boetti, Jonas Burgert, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Mat Collishaw, Marc Couturier, Jimmie Durham, Jan Fabre, Hamish Fulton, Mario Giacomelli, Piero Gilardi, Leon Golub, He He (Helen Evans - Heiko Hansen), Anna Ippolito and Marzio Zorio, John Isaacs, Francesco Jodice, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Dorothea Lange, Richard Long, Andrea Marescalchi, Ryan Mendoza, Mario Merz, Nils-Udo, Eric Poitevin, Simone Racheli, Sebastião Salgado, Salvo, Serse, Tracey Snelling, Mircea Suciu, Gavin Turk, Sandra Vasquéz De la Horra, Koen Vanmechelen and Gilberto Zorio.
The exhibition is a powerful and evocative narration through the 117 works on show(photo images, installations and paintings),and includes three site-specific installations at the entrance and exit of the Palace. One by Marc Couturier located at the entrance hall and the other two, made by a couple of very young artists, Anna Ippolito and Marzio Zorio, located in Piazza Garibaldi and in the square of the Steccata Basilica.
On the first floor halls of the Palace, among the works dedicated to the Creation, some never before exhibited items stand out, such as: the original layout, the letters of various Geographic Institutes and the first typewritten copy of Alighiero Boetti and his wife Annemarie Sauzeau famous book classifying the thousand longest rivers in the world, or rarely shown works, such as Mario Giacomelli’s 4 photographs of the series “Motif suggested by the tree cut”.
On the second floor halls dedicated to the Destruction, among those of particular interest are the works of Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez, whose retrospective is ongoing since May at the MOMA of New York, the first show the American museum dedicated to a Back African, or Dorothea Lange’s photos shot in 1931 with Mexican labourers leaving the United States because of lack of work, which could have been taken yesterday.
The exhibition will be enriched by conferences, initiatives and side events.
The weeks preceding the opening will feature the events of the series Waiting for the Third Day: on15 March, author Bruno Arpaia presents to the public his Qualcosa, là fuori (Something Out There); on 20 March, astronaut Paolo Nespoli meets cartoonist Leo Ortolani in Tra nuvolette e stelle (Between Little Balloons and Stars); then on 26 March professor Dario Costi and economist Enrico Giovannini discuss scenarios of the future in L’utopia sostenibile (The Sustainable Utopia).
On the night of 26 May, all of Parma will shine for The Night of the Third day:an evocative multi-location event starting with a night visit to the exhibition and then continuing on with concerts, video mapping, screenings and performances. Driving force will be the full moon, in its symbolic significance of mystery and discovery.
A key initiative will be the Atelier dei bambini (Children Atelier), a workshop of “imagination of matter”, that provides materials and guidance to children on the ways to develop the imagination: from a stone to a skyscraper, from a branch to a canoe, from a leaf to an Italian garden. The event will be held in spaces nearby the exhibition and will end with the creation of a unique work made of 1,500 pieces.
Particularly significant will be the Atelier dei Bambini (Children Atelier) initiative. It will give school children and all children from 5 to 10 visiting the exhibition the opportunity to create their own “piece of sky”, taking inspiration from Gilberto Zorio’s "Stella- Seta”, the "Sous Bois” works of Eric Poitevin, "Communist Apartment" by Tracey Snelling and "Hôtel de Ville de Kinshasa" by Bodys Isek Kingelez, on show.
An exhibition catalogue, including an essay from the curator and an anthology of the thoughts of the artists on the relationship between art and nature will be printed for the occasion.
The exhibition has the support of: The European Commission – Milan delegation, Ministry of the Environment and Protection of the Land and Sea; AsviS - Alleanza Italiana per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile (Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development), Centro Etica ambientale (Centre for Environmental Ethics), FAI – The National Fund for Italy, Fondazione per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile (Foundation for Sustainable Development), Legambiente, Slow food, WWF Italia, B-Corp Movement, The Natural Step Italy, Emilia Romagna Region, Energie diffuse, Associazione Parma, io ci sto!, The University of Parma, European College of Parma Foundation.
The exhibition The Third Day is made possiblethanks to the participation of:
main sponsors: Barilla, Chiesi, Davines;
sponsor: BNL BNP Paribas Group;
supporters: Bormioli Luigi, Fidenza Village, OPEM, O’, Parmigiano Reggiano;
technical sponsors: Reale Mutua; Interconsul;
partner of the Atelier dei bambini: Gruppo Spaggiari.
Parma, March 2018
LINKS AND PRESS MATERIAL:
INFORMATION FOR THE PRESS
Municipality of Parma Press Office:
Exhibition Press Office: Maria Bonmassar. phone: +39 06 4825370 | mobile: +39 335490311 |
FACT SHEET
Exhibition: The Third Day
Curator: Didi Bozzini
Production and organization: Arkage (Artattack Group)
Location: Governor's Palace - Piazza Garibaldi, Parma
Press Conference: Milan, Villa Necchi Campiglio, Wednesday 14 March 2018 at 11.00 AM
Press Preview: Thursday 19 April 2018 at 11.00 AM
Exhibition open: 20 April – 1 July 2018
Exhibition opening hours: Wednesdays and Thursdays from 12.00 noon to 8.00 PM | Fridays from 12.00 noon to 11.00 PM | Saturdays and Sunday + public holidays (25 April, 1 May, 2 June): from 10.00 AM to 8.00 PM | Mondays and Tuesdays closed.
Admission: General admission 9 euro | Reduced admission 6 euro (under 26, over 65, disabled, teachers, groups of 10 minimum | free (children 10 years old and younger, people accompanying disabled visitors, two guides for schools, one guide per group of adults)
Info: +39 0521 218035 |
Website:
Facebook: Il Terzo Giorno
Instagram: ilterzogiorno
Twitter: @il_terzo_giorno
Hashtag: #ilterzogiorno
WAITING FOR THE THIRD DAY
Thursday 15 March 2018 at 5.30 PM
Bruno Arpaia, presentation of the book Qualcosa, là fuori (Something Out There)
Parma, Auditorium of the Governor's Palace
Tuesday 20 March 2018 at 6.30 PM
Paolo Nespoli and Leo Ortolani on Tra nuvolette e stelle (Between Little Balloons and Stars)
Parma, Circolo di Lettura e Conversazione, via Melloni 4/A
Monday 26 March 2018 at 5.30 PM
Dario Costi e Enrico Giovannini on L’utopia sostenibile (The Sustainable Utopia)
Parma, Auditorium of the Governor's Palace
THE NIGHT OF THE THIRD DAY
Saturday 26 May 2018, from 6.30 PM to 9.00 PM: exhibition visit