Flashback is Opera Viva
Opera Viva Barriera di Milano, the Billboard
2015 /2023
A project by Alessandro Bulgini
Opera Viva Barriera di Milano, the Billboard, is an urban art project which adds meaning to the concept of public art because of the use of the pre-existing in conceiving the work of art. In this specific case a municipal space for public billboards ( cimasa 50530) of 6x3m in Turin in Piazza Bottesini (Barriera di Milano, a multi-ethnic Turin district) is performed by national and international artists throughout the year.
In 2013 began Flashback is Opera Viva (Flashback is a living artwork) by the artist Alessandro Bulgini in the belief that art is immortal and therefore artworks are always alive; however, the Opera Viva is also the submerged part of the hull and therefore represents the submerged, all that is invisible, all the peripheries, mental and physical. This is how the project created to connect the inside and the outside, the submerged and the emerged, the visible and the invisible, the center and the suburbs, in 2015 turns into an urban art project: Opera Viva Barriera di Milano, the Billboard.
The project develops around a precise idea of ​​the relationship between art and public space, and of the function of an artwork within a context and an urban community. Through this operation that lasts all year, Flashback connects different areas of the city of Turin and different time zones (the ancient, the modern, the contemporary in its making): in the belief that art must come out of institutional spaces, go down the street, go into reality, move constantly in it, integrate into the dimension of daily existence.
On the occasion of the art fair, the images of the posters, together with all the fragments of life collected, are brought together in a single exhibition for this window open to the world and for the world.
This year we celebrate the tenth edition of the urban art project by Alessandro Bulgini. Since 2015, it has hosted more than 50 Italian and foreign artists who have interpreted the 6x3 metre public space of Piazza Bottesini in Barriera di Milano in Turin. The theme chosen for the 2024 edition of Opera Viva Barriera di Milano, the Billboard is CAMOUFLAGE. This practice refers to any method used to make oneself less detectable to enemy forces. The historical moment we are living highlights how most components of the cultural system are intimidated from speaking out on international issues.
The billboard thus becomes a space for the unspoken, for revealing a need, a perfectly disguised personal conviction. The selected artists were invited to create a work that is antithetical to what they would actually like to express and denounce: a perfect camouflage. This edition encourages to dissent without exposing oneself. This year, therefore, Opera Viva Barriera di Milano, The Billboard, is a choral operation that aims to express discomfort through the public manifestation of its opposite. Seven artists and their works, which together form a single work of dissent.
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The selected artists who will have their camouflage on display in Piazza Bottesini, Barriera di Milano, from 4th June 2024 are:
Francesca De Angelis
Marina Arienzale
Charlotte Landini
Monica Podda e Stefano Budicin
Cocis Ferrari
Giuseppe Fittipaldi
Davide Dormino
Past editions artists:
2023
Gianluca e Massimiliano De Serio, Natura Morta
Sergio Cascavilla, L'arte povera E' INGombraNTE OBsoleTA
Luigi Gariglio, Cinghie
Pierluigi Pusole, Amico (2018)
Alessandro Bulgini, Produzione Cosmetici
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2022
Hugleikur Daggson, What just happened?
Snorri Asmundsson, Smartphone Sovereignty
Libia Castro & Olafur Olaffson, Your country doesn't exist (2003 - ongoing)
Elsa Yeoman, Be My Guest
Shoplifter (Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir), Fuzzy Smile
Frosti Gnarr, Hide or seek
Jòn Gnarr, Last Supper (2003)
2021
Emanuela Barilozzi Caruso, senzazioni
Erika Nevia Cervo, Utile (2020)
Mariapaola Infuso, *** topia
Lucrezia Testa Iannilli, Gates
Federica Peyrolo, Almanacco
Federica Belli, Imagination is an act of rebelllion
Alessandro Bulgini, Opera Viva - Servomuto (d'apres Fabio Mauri)
Tatiana Villani, EstrusioneIlaria Abbiento, Mediterraneo 2017 (2017)
2020
Maïmouna Guerresi, Rubber Tire, First Lesson (2014)
Iginio De Luca, Altro giro, altra corsa
Serena Fineschi, Viva questo mondo di merda
Noura Tafeche, il trionfo di Bacco e Arianna (2018)
Luigi Presicce, Arlecchini in Paradiso
Alessandro Bulgini, Opera Viva - 13 vertical. Che?
Giammarco Cugusi, Paga la mossa. Di un'integrazione precaria
Luisa Turuani, Ma non è questo il giorno
2019
Rebecca Moccia, Fuoco in tasca
Emanuela Barilozzi Caruso, Unknown
Nero / Alessandro Neretti, All the Things that We Need
Laura Cionci, Chiarazione
Alessandro Bulgini, Opera Viva - Guardiani. Sculture solari per naufrago
2018
Lucia Veronesi, The safe zone
Saccardi workshop, Dioniso in città
Irene Pittatore, Wire Connection
Virginia Zanetti, The pillars of the earth
Francesca Sandroni, -10° minuto
Alessandro Bulgini, Opera viva - Accesso libero al mare
2017
Raffaele Fiorella, Operette morali
Calixto Ramirez, Tana libera tutti!
Cristiano De Gaetano, Ice Age
Fabrizio Bellomo, Saluti da Cerignola
Roxy in the Box, Martiri
Alessandro Bulgini, Porta Fortuna
2016
Zanbagh Lotfi, Memory Vague 1361
Andrea Mastrovito, Il Secolo Bravo
Saul Melman, Stretched and Still Lies in the Midnight
Aryan Ozmaei, Unusu-Ambo: Sabalan 2
Gian Maria Tosatti, Histoire et Destin - New Men's Land (Star, 2016)
Alessandro Bulgini, Opera Viva - Corso Giulio
2015
Alessandro Bulgini, Antica è tua sorella