Public Program Seth Siegelaub: Textile Art Theory
PUBLIC PROGRAM
18 November–16 December 2023
Fondazione Antonio Ratti e Triennale Milano
The public program, dedicated to the exhibition Seth Siegelaub: Textile, Art and Theory by Triennale Milano and Fondazione Antonio Ratti, alternates three days dedicated to a series of meetings, presentations, panel discussions and performances in both Como and Milan between November and December.
The multidisciplinary funds composed of textile artifacts and books, now part of the Ratti Foundation's collections, encapsulates the vision and research of an eclectic figure, who is still considered a source of inspiration for artists, cultural workers, collectors and publishers internationally. Seth Siegelaub faced a variety of disciplines over his career, moving from the conceptual art of the 1970s to art and political publishing activities and passionate, noncommercial collecting of textiles and books on textiles.
He considered art, publishing and textiles - that represented for him powerful tools to read and understand contemporary reality - are the pivotal points of this program.
Alternating between presentations, debates, performances and lectures, within the exhibition spaces that host the exhibition between Milan and Como, the three days of in-depth study will be organized around some thematic focuses such as: the publishing format as an exhibition and curatorial platform; textile art as a mirror of world cultures and contemporary art as a vehicle for the urgencies and needs of the present; the relationship between art and work in contemporary society starting from the Artist' Agreement conceived by Seth Siegelaub and Daniel Projansky.
These themes will be interpreted in different formats and natures, performed and actualized by heterogeneous voices of artists, researchers, legal experts, conservators, activists and thinkers invited to speak on topics and practices whose burning relevance is evident today.
18.11.23 / 2.12.23
Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como
16.12.23
Triennale, Milano
Curated by
Martina Angelotti, Lorenzo Benedetti
With: Biennalocene/Emanuele Braga (collective project/artist activist); Marja Bloem (Egress Foundation); Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti (AWI, curator); Danilo Corrreale (artist); Emmy de Groot (textile conservator); Alessandra Donati (lawyer and professor); Vincenzo Estremo (writer and curator); Roberta Genta (Centro di Conservazione e Restauro La Venaria Reale); Matthieu Laurette (artist); Sara Martinetti (researcher); Daniel McLean (lawyer); Michalis Pichler (artist); Mario Garcia Torres (artist); Frances-Marie Uitti (cellist and composer); Lauren Van Haaften Schick (curator and researcher); Andrea Wiarda & Katia Anguelova (Kunstverein Milano)
Free entrance upon reservation
for info: far@fondazioneratti.org
PROGRAM
18.11.23
PUBLISHING AS EXHIBITION MAKING
Fondazione Antonio Ratti
WATCH ON VIMEO
16.00
Mario Garcia Torres (artist)
I AM NOT A FLOPPER
Lecture performance
Coming from the most fundamental ideas of conceptual art, Alan Smithee is a character that has grown out of non-artistic idea. In his practice, the filmmaker does not shoot films, but simply signs them, while dramatically challenging the paradigm of culture production. For this occasion, Mario Garcia Torres plays Smithee himself, in the first of the artist’s stage monologue trilogy.
17:00
Andrea Wiarda e Katia Anguelova (Kunstverein Milano); Matthieu Laurette (artist); Michalis Pichler (artist);
Lectures and conversations
19:15
Frances-Marie Uitti (cellist and composer)
HOMAGE TO SETH SIEGELAUB: SOUNDED TEXTILE
Cello concert two strings technique
New composition inspired by the textile item in Seth Siegelaub's collection
The tapestry collection of Seth Siegelaub offers a wide variety of motifs that can be reinterpreted into musical scores. The colors, the repetitions, grouped patterns, and various depth of stiching give a myriad of possibllities. Of course my interpretation is not strict, but rather inspired by the richness of ideas and complexity of the work as a whole. Weaving through this evening's works are small interludes and homages. The extroardinary instrument in tonight's concert is from the 1920's and believed to come from the famous Pfretschner atelier in Germany. It is a rare example given its deep sonorities, delicate highs, and beautiful physical appearance. I invented the technique of using two bows in one hand in order to access sustained 3 and 4 note chords, non adjacent strings, a simultaneous variety of articulations and colors not possible with the traditional bow. Over 50 composers have used this technique including Giacinto Scelsi, Luigi Nono, Luciano Chessa, Gyorgy Kurtag etc.
02.12.2023
BEYOND COLLECTING TEXTILE
Fondazione Antonio Ratti
WATCH ON VIMEO
Having been introduced to textiles thanks to the gift of a Chilean Arpillera, a popular women's textile work used as a form of political denunciation, Seth Siegelaub devoted himself to the study of the social history of textiles, which led him to found the Center for Social Research on Old Textiles (CSROT) and publish Bibliographica Textilia Historiæ. Towards a general bibliography on the history of textiles (1997), the first bibliographic collection of all existing textile literature. Through intimate, scientific, technical, historical and ethnographic perspectives, this appointment will interrogate Seth Siegelaub's multidisciplinary approach to textiles, outlining the forms and future prospects of the collection recently acquired by FAR, thanks to the scholars and conservators who have accompanied its formation and now collect its legacy.
16.00
Guided tour to the exhibition with the curators Lorenzo Benedetti, Marja Bloem, Maddalena Terragni and introduction to the textile collection
17.30
Sara Martinetti (researcher)
Lecture
18.00
Marja Bloem (Egress Foundation); Emmy de Groot (textile conservator); Roberta Genta (Centro Conservazione e Restauro La Venaria Reale, Torino); Sara Russo (Textile conservation's referent of Fondazione Antonio Ratti)
Lectures and conversations
16.12.2023
ART AND LABOR
Triennale Milano
WATCH ON VIMEO
The third appointment of the public program dedicated to Seth Siegelaub intends to explore the relationship between art and labor from historical and contemporary perspectives, in relation to the transformations occurred throughout the art system in all its components.
Seth Siegelaub and Daniel Projansky's 1969 Artist's Contract and more recent
developments, which is displayed in a dedicated section of the exhibition, becomes an
opportunity to reread and reactualize unresolved urgencies.
15.00
Lauren van Haaften-Schick (curator and researcher)
Lecture
15.30
Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti (AWI - Art Workers Italia); Daniel McClean (lawyer); Alessandra Donati (lawyer and professor); Lauren van Haaften-Schick (curator and researcher)
Lectures and conversations
17.30
Biennalocene/Emanuele Braga (collective project/artist activist); Danilo Correale (artist); Vincenzo Estremo (writer and curator);
Lectures and conversations
