Alcantara and the Arts of our Time

On the occasion of the exhibition ALBERTO BIASI. La Materia della Visione 1959 – 2019, #alcantara showcases its special relationship with the world of art

Venice, May 7 2019 – The exhibition ALBERTO BIASI. La Materia della Visione 1959 – 2019, curated by Marco Meneguzzo, has just opened at the the Scuola Grande della Misericordia.

On this occasion, the chairman of #alcantara S.p.A. Andrea Boragno explains the special relationship which has linked the company to the finest expressions of contemporary international creativity.

In particular, this collaboration is based on the acknowledgement of #alcantara as an expressive material capable of responding to compositional needs with great versatility, serving as an artistic medium in its own right.

“We are proud to be able to say that over time” states Andrea Boragno Chairman and CEO of #alcantara Company, “this form of interaction with artists has created a virtuous circle thanks to which – while initially it was us who proposed projects and invited artists to measure up to the versatility and ductility of the material and of our creative departments – today it’s the artists themselves who seek to establish relations with us and who choose #alcantara as an expressive medium to best represent their poetics.” 

The curator Marco Meneguzzo says that “in the exhibition, the artist decided to experiment the use of a new material that – thanks to its lightness, ductility, and chromatic opacity – gave the large pieces a new optical effect. This was a successful experiment, also thanks to the #alcantara Research Centre, which specifically developed hundreds of strips according to Biasi’s needs. The installation includes a new series of four Torsioni Sovrapposte and four large-scale Ottico-Dinamici.” 

“For some time I had wanted to try out a new material,” says Alberto Biasi. “I had already explored all the potential of PVC, which is also likely to be prohibited by the EU because it is too polluting. I wanted a material that was softer and less plastic. The resistance to the strong tension which the composing lamellas are subjected to was a limit not to be undervalued. I have long been aware of #alcantara and I wanted to try it out. The firm was at once extremely helpful and sent me samples and then cut me lamellas to use in my work. In this way I realised that this material is not only soft to see and touch, but also ‘changeable’. I understood the changeability of this material after having had to take apart a prototype because I hadn’t understood why the lamellas were of two different blacks: #alcantara ‘works’ with light according to where you look at it from. This specific aspect of the material very much belongs to me and I like it very much. This is how my latest works and ‘my’ new material came about.” 

Alcantara and the Arts of our Time 

Starting from 2011, #alcantara set up a series of collaborations and virtual projects, defining a new form of intervention in the arts field. A unique and tailor-made form, in perfect harmony with the values and identity of #alcantara. 

Visual artists, fashion and industrial designers, film directors and video makers, architects and musicians from all around the world have worked with #alcantara, producing works that have been displayed in some of the most prestigious international museum institutions, from the MAXXI in Rome to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and from the Yuz Museum in Shanghai to the Mori Museum in Tokyo. 

Among the many collaboration projects with artists, there are leading names in a host of fields that stand out: from the designers Nendo, Marcel Wanders, Giulio Cappellini and Ingo Maurer, to the architect Nanda Vigo, acknowledged with having introduced spatialism to interior #design; from the most poetic of Italian video makers Yuri Ancarani to Chinese calligraphic artists such as Qin Feng and Qu Lei Lei; the visionary haute-couture stylist Iris Van Herpen and the brilliant musicians Matthiew Herbert, Caterina Barbieri and the Soundwalk Collective… These are just some of the protagonists of contemporary creativity with whom #alcantara has had the privilege of establishing a relationship of genuine complicity and – for a while – of becoming genuine travelling companions. 

As well as collaborating on the implementation of the show Alberto Biasi. La materia della visione 1959 – 2019 opening today, Alcantara’s goal in 2019 is for the company to be directly involved in the production of three exhibitions: the solo show of the Formafantasma studio, Nervi in the Making, at the MAXXI in Rome, which ended recently having enjoyed great public success, and the collective show featuring a brand new and site-specific project titled DE CODING. Alcantara nelle Sale degli Arazzi, currently on display at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, which is arousing great interest among both visitors and critics alike. Lastly, over the month of July the project Nine Journeys through Timewill also be staged at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai.

Alcantara isalso participating in another major retrospective,with large-scale works produced in Alcantara: in the month of July, the exhibition Chiharu Shiota. The Soul Trembles, at the Mori Museum in Tokyo will open its doors to the public. 

As thisexhibitionclearly demonstrates, 2019 marks a key moment in Alcantara’s involvement in art, not only in terms of the intensity of its commitments and the quality of its proposals, but also insofar as it marks the full development of a new and unique intervention approach, the strength of which lies in the construction of genuine dialogue with artists and with leading curators, museums and cultural institutions throughout the world, in perfect harmony with Alcantara’s values and identity. This dialogue between seemingly different and distant worlds – that of the artistic disciplines and that of the company – has always given rise to a reciprocal relationship of interchange, paving the way to the acquisition of a tangible heritage of knowledge in continuous development, one which embodies the characteristic hallmarks of #alcantara. 

DETAILS OF THE 2019 PROJECTS 

Formafantasma, Nervi in the Making, at the MAXXI in Rome until 14 April, is the second stage in the Studio Visit project, with which #alcantara continues its collaboration with the Roman museum that began in 2011. After having staged six group shows involving more than thirty national and international #design studios, the Studio Visit format saw #alcantara move towards monographic and solo shows. In 2018, Nanda Vigo with Arch-Arcology paid homage to the visionary architect Paolo Soleri. This year, the #design studio Formafantasma, headed by Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, has decided to come face to face with the work of the great engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, presenting Nervi in the Making: an installation created using #alcantara and curated by Domitilla Dardi. 

De Coding. #alcantara nelle Sale degli Arazzi, at the Palazzo Reale in Milan until 12 May 2019. De Coding, curated by Domitilla Dardi and Angela Rui, opens a new phase in a cycle of Milanese shows which since 2015 have explored the qualities of Alcantaraas a material for art and #design. The artists Costance Guisset, Qu Lei Lei, Sabine Marcelis, Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg (Space Popular) were called upon to come up with site-specific works, dialoguing with the exhibition rooms and reinterpreting the central theme of the tapestries that are displayed within them. 

Abroad:

Chiharu Shiota: The Soul Trembles, at the Mori Museum in Tokyo from 20 June, will be the largest retrospective ever dedicated to the famous Japanese artist resident in Berlin. Two of the most important installations will be produced using #alcantara: Reflection of Space and Time, in the version displayed last year at the Palazzo Reale, and In Silence:a major work in which an immense black spider web envelops a half-burnt piano surrounded by chairs, in a new and previously unseen version. 

Nine Journeys Through Time: Aaajiao, Andrea Anastasio, Caterina Barbieri, KRIJN De Koning, Alex Schweder, Li Shurui, Chiharu Shiota, Iris van Herpen, Zeitguised is an exhibition curated by Davide Quadrio and produced by the Yuz Museum of Shanghai together with #alcantara. It is inspired by the group show Nove viaggi nel tempo featured at Milan’s Palazzo Reale in 2018. In Shanghai, the exhibition is enhanced by original configurations of the works of Krijn De Koning, Chiharu Shiota and Aaajiao, a group also comprising a new artist, the ‘performative architect’ Alex Schweder. All the works on show are produced making use of #alcantara. At the Yuz Museum in Shanghai from 3 July to 7 October.