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The MAU - Museum of Urban Art in Turin - is the first project
of its kind to be realized in Italy. Its aim is to create
a permanent artistic outdoor structure situated within a big
metropolitan space. Its added value is to be a project that
comes from below, thanks to the consensus and fundamental
contribution of local inhabitants. Here lies the exact difference
between our reality and other fascinating museums, such as
the famous Maglione and Dozza, which are located in charming,
but peripheral, small places. On the contrary, the Municipality
of Naples promoted an interesting initiative, which was been
coordinated from above : a museum path was built inside and,
partially, outside the new Underground stations,. In Piedmont,
something similar is being done in Moncalieri, with a project
named Moncalieri porta dell’arte.
The originary heart of MAU is located in Borgo Vecchio Campidoglio,
which was a working class neighbourhood by the end of the
XIXth century. It is situated at the junction of three rivers
(Svizzera, Appio Claudio and Tassoni), along Via Fabrizi and
Via Cibrario, not far from the city centre.
This portion of urban space miracolously survived the big
changes that followed the Regulatory Plan in 1959. Its original
structure remained intact, with its dense maze of narrow streets,
low houses and wide green courtyards, thus favouring the relationship
between places and people. Not far from Turin’s city
centre, it constitutes a “village within the city”.
In 1995 the promoters of the Urban Rejuvenation Committee
and its then Chairman, architect Francesco Adorno, who had
long been working to re-evaluate the Borgo’s architectural
and urban potential, conceived a way to include artistic intervention
in the overall scheme, and welcomed the citizens to join their
discussions.
Some cultural operators were therefore invited by the Chairman
of the Committee to express their opinions. I was among them
as a member of the Managing Board for Museums and Exhibitions
in Turin who had been working for years on the relationship
between art and local space.
I considered the Borgo Vecchio to be the ideal place for the
realization of the Committee’s aims. Then followed a
long preliminary phase that led to our current results, thanks
to the decisive help of the Urban Rejuvenation Committee,
to architect Giovanni Sanna and to the Accademia Albertina
di Belle Arti, represented by professor Carlo Giuliano.
Since the uneasy beginning, 66 murals have been realized within
the Borgo Vecchio, and in May 2001, 36 new installations were
added. Up to today, the Galleria Campidoglio therefore shows
102 works. The Galleria, an organic division of the Museum
of Urban Art, has been promoted by the Natural Craft Shopping
Centre Campidoglio, among other initiatives of the Urban Qualification
Plan proposed by the municipal and regional Trade offices.
The murals, whose size is 70 X 100 centimeters, have been
permanently hanged on the walls between the shops along Via
Nicola Fabrizi and Corso Svizzera. They are protected by plexiglas
containers, and, last March, they have been supplied with
permanent lighting.
2001 was a very important year for the definitive launch of
the image and role of MAU, both at a local and national level,
which culminated when it was mentioned in the Museum Chart
of the Piedmont Region.
The Museum of Urban Art is now at a crucial time. As the starting
phase comes to an end, most goals have be achieved. These
years were characterised by enthusiastic experimentation,
but also by the problems we faced at times with some of our
former public interlocutors, who sometimes even boycotted
our initiatives for no apparent reason. During the last five
years the situation improved, as we come close to a full acknowledgment
and awareness of the museum potential, not only in artistic
and didactic terms, but also for its touristic and promotional
appeal. It is a further, non-fleeting resource for Turin.
In recent years, the city actually acknowledged the importance
of supporting contemporary culture and art.
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It seems anyway necessary to prevent the risk of fragmenting
interventions, meanwhile reducing the excessive privilege given
to those projects that were conceived by public administrations,
thus leaving more space to private organizations, associations
and local cultural operators. These institutions have been too
often neglected in favour of other projects that were proposed
by private entrepreneurs. A vast, important area of local and
Italian avantgarde art has been recently excluded by choices
that, while often being interesting, appear nevertheless to
be monothematic, unable to show a wider vision of contemporary
stylistic eclecticism. With its history and the professionality
of its collaborators, the Museum of Urban Art is an ideal candidate
for the realization of a new kind of initiatives.
Our next goal is to keep working at the murals in Borgo Vecchio,
whose conception allows constant additions and improvings, and
to subsequently include other urban areas in our projects.
If adequately funded by public and private financers, our will
is to add a series of permanent sculptures and installations
in other parts of the neighbourhood, such as Piazza Risorgimento,
the market area of Corso Svizzera and some of the more degraded
areas of Pellerina. Another project aims at creating a large
exhibition space that can serve as a Centre for Contemporary
Arts, an ambitious but necessary addition that needs to be thought
of in order to achieve the full development of the MAU activities
and guarantee the before mentioned artistic pluralism.
All this will be made possible if the Museum of Urban Art will
join the Fondazione Torino Musei. This is all the more probable,
since MAU seems to be destined to represent public art in Turin
along with the PAV – Piero Gilardi’s Living Art
Park. This goal, and the best way to achieve it, are being carefully
studied since last year, thanks to the interest of the Councillor
for Culture Fiorenzo Alfieri and the managing staff at the Museum
Sector, Francesco De Biase and Vincenzo Simone in particular.
Finally, it is worth mentioning how, since the beginning, our
aim was to involve a great number of young artists in our initiative.
Getting their works exhibited along with those of experienced
artists certainly gave them a chance to grow, even in a didactic
sense. This couldn’t have been possible without the fundamental
contribution of Accademia Albertina. Aside from periodically
inviting young artists to exhibit their works, in 1998 the Museum
also launched a competition among the students of the several
Italian Academies of Fine Arts. It led to the selection of ten
authors, whose murals were then realized and exhibited.
Between 2002 and 2006 a significant number of murales was produced.
Among them, works by Salvatore Astore, Enrico De Paris, Sergio
Ragalzi, Angelo Barile, Theo Gallino, Antonio Mascia, Claudia
Tamburelli, Santo Leonardo, Giorgio Ramella, Roberta Fanti,
Daniela Dalmasso, Vittorio Valente, Andrea Massaioli, Antenore
Rovesti, Bruno Sacchetto, Alessandro Gioiello, Gianluca Nibbi,
Alessandro Rivoir, Matteo Ceccarelli, Marco Bailone, Paola Risoli,
Fathi Hassan. Gaetano Grillo. Other works by Alessando Rivoir,
Enzo Bersezio and Antonio Carena have been restored and partially
redone. On the 14th of July 2004, the first MAU catalogue was
officially presented: it was printed by the Piedmont Region
and will be constantly updated. Our website is currently being
completely re-designed and updated with the most modern technologies,
which will include a virtual tour of the Museum. The mass media
also shown much more attention to the MAU activities, and the
requests for guided tours considerably increased. The Municipality
of Turin included the Museum of Urban Art in its initiatives
for Torino contemporanea: luce ed arte, and in the touristic
itineraries of Torino non a caso. MAU also collaborated in the
realization of didactic itineraries with Palazzo Bricherasio
and IED – European Institute for Design.
Edoardo Di Mauro, Chairman
and Art Director of the Museum of Urban Art |
