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In the pulsating heart of one of the most pictoresque neighbourhoods of Rome, the “Rione” (district) of Testaccio, there stands, like a gem perfectly set into the slopes of the famous “Monte dei Cocci” (Crockery Mountain) made of ancient Roman broken pottery, the cultural association M.I.C.RO., which was inaugurated on the 12th of April 2005 on the occasion of the artist Serge Uberti’s personal exhibition.
M.I.C.RO is an acronym which stands for International Cultural Movement of Rome and it seems cleverly chosen when one considers the location of the structure, nearly opposite the Macro exhibition space and its aims and purposes already implicit in the name itself.
In fact, as Serena Dell’Aira, the art historian and leading co-ordinator of the association explains, the intention is “to create a dynamic cultural environment based on a process of aggregation between the arts, in the full knowledge that only by means of dialectic comparison they can attain a genuine and profound regeneration”. Starting from this reflection, one can understand the nature of this innovative project: it is not intended as an attempt to offer an antiseptic and cold art gallery or museum, nor as a space for lazily showing films or reciting poetry, nor as a stage for dance performances. Instead there is a desire to cause all these and more activities to interact in order to produce a dynamic creative synergy, getting all the arts, ranging from painting, sculpture, music, photography and poetry to the cinema and dance involved in a novel and original way.
The premises of M.I.C.RO. are spacious and comfortable and it has three separate rooms in which it is possible to admire the works of the exponents of Sicilian futurism as well as a colourful trunk in the entrance corridor painted by Giulio D’Anna or canvases by Danilo Bucchi and other renowned Italian artists such as Giampistone. With the initiative known as “Arte Azione” (Art Action) from the 16th to the 25th of September 2005 there was a tangible demonstration of the goals of M.I.C.RO..
The encounter between the various expressive forms of art (painting, sculpture or installations) with music and dance demonstrated how the expressivity of body movements can decode and transfigure the essence of art and the processes of its creation, becoming the trait d’union between the work of art and its beholder or users. In this way dance can be seen as an expressive form that assists and encourages the observer to enter into contact with the artistic object by means of a pathway that, using various different channels, can lead to a deeply personal emotional effect.
Another noble aim which is almost a sort of manifesto or guide for the association, is that of allowing talented artists, without distinction of age, to make their abilities and artistic qualities known by preparing exhibitions and events, also sometimes transforming them into occasions for encounters involving the sharing of some very varied training experiences and techniques.
An example of this was the exhibition “4D - Expression of an artistic process between various creative nuclei” inaugurated on 22 June 2005, in which the five artists Massimo Attardi, Danilo Bucchi, Maurizio Cascella, Elia Sabato e Marco Tamburro were the protagonists.
The result of this experiment was to get a number of different artistic identities to collaborate and travel together on a short artistic journey, bringing vibrant life to a unique experience of “creative circularity” and of dialogue between artists and the particular materials they work with. The association also aims to capture and record the reactions of the observer through the range of human initiative-expressive signals such as glances and movements, in order to trace a sort of itinerary of the art work that, first conceived and expressed in the creative actions of the artist, finds its natural completion in the emotions that it is able to provoke.
A distinctive feature that characterizes the numerous cultural proposals presented is an evident desire to increasingly get the public actively involved and participating in the creative act. It is sufficient to think of the evenings dedicated to the cine-forum (14 December 2005-17 May 2006) in which various films were shown to illustrate the history of cinema from the 1920s until the present day. The evening concluded with a debate in which the sharing of ideas and a comparison of various points of view was encouraged, together with a reflection on the themes and values that the medium of film has tried to communicate over the years. In this way there was an attempt to offer an alternative means of interpretation and approach to cinema with an invitation to look beyond the images in order to develop a more critical and analytical approach. Also the encounters with poets and video makers (20 January – 19 May 2006) have been fascinating and attracted large crowds.
The formula o presentation, reading and comment regarding a poet of the 20th century was particularly successful and interesting for the public. The four “futurist nights” organized in Rome in May 2005 and then presented in Erice (Sicily) on the 13th and 14th May 2006, had a particularly warm and enthusiastic welcome. In choosing the futurist avant-garde as the topic of the event, M.I.C.RO. attempted to recreate the “climate” of the time in a convincingly historical and philological reconstruction, also evident in the curious and defined decorations of the rooms.
The central concept of the futurist aesthetic is that art must make art mobile by mixing up, combining, confusing and fusing the concepts of language, reality and representation, and on these evenings the public truly experienced this idea, attending live performances regarding literature, theatre, cinema, music, dance and even gastronomy in which the actors got the spectators fully involved, often completely by surprise.
Following on from this event and with the desire to examine more deeply another artistic period of the 20th century, namely Pop-Art, the association set up an exhibition entitled, “From Pop-Art to contemporary experiences” (18 February-5 March 2006), structured in such a way that the observer could virtually travel back to the birth of the so-called “Popular Art” of the past century and move through the pictures of Warhol, Lichtenstein, Festa and Schifano, up until the works of contemporary artists, considered as adoptive sons of the fathers of the “Pop” who are nevertheless able to create their own distinctive and unique styles.
M.I.C.RO. is therefore a genuine forge of original ideas and initiatives, always active and willing to satisfy the curiosity of the public, also those people who have never been introduced to contemporary art, with democratic cultural intentions that summon everyone and encourage us all to participate in learning about the arts in an innovative way while at the same time having fun. This invitation is made above all to those artists who wish to collaborate with the association in order to make their work more widely known, giving the proper value to whichever artistic field they are involved in.
M.I.C.RO. sponsors and encourages a number of other very interesting cultural activities but its greatest merit is certainly the extremely valuable support it gives to all the arts, with nobody excluded!
Dott. Enrico Venti
Francesca Barbi
E-mail:francescabarbi@microarte.org
Serena Dell'Aira
E-mail:serenadellaira@microarte.org
Ester Carbone
