15th Rome Quadriennale
The 15th Rome Quadriennale or XV Rome Quadriennale is an Italian art exhibition held between 19 June and 14 September 2008 at its historical site, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni of Rome, Italy.
The exhibition has no thematic restrictions and originates with the aim of documenting a situation in evolution, by mapping out a panorama of contemporary Italian art of the two decades preceding 2008.
The 15ª Q, as it is called on the cover of the catalogue and on the publicity materials connected to the manifestation, cost about two million euro and had some 30,000 visitors during the 76 days that it was open.
The exhibition
The aim of the exhibition is to trace out a map of the main results of the artistic research conducted in Italy during the two decades prior to 2008 as well as of the experiences considered representative of that period, devoting particular attention to the artists in the middle of their careers and the younger ones, indicative of the possible future evolution of the Italian artistic panorama. The exhibition registers the different tendencies of contemporary art in which conceptual art, minimalism, and the various tendencies of the pictorial and photographic image are confronted in a further attempt to identify the possible singularities of the Italian situation in the international system of art.Ninety-nine artists have been invited, each with a single recent work, in many cases created for the occasion. Painting, photography, video art, sculpture, installations and net art are the expressions that have been adopted in the exhibition in proportions that are not homogeneous. The artists participating have an average age of forty-five years, one-quarter of them are under thirty-five and a third are women.
The XV Rome Quadrennial has been dedicated to the memory of Luciano Fabro: his sculpture Autunno, exhibited here for the first time, opens the exhibition in the Sala della Rotonda of Palazzo delle Esposizioni.
During the exhibition period, the educational services of the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, in collaboration with the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the Sapienza University of Rome, have organized meetings between the artists and the public in the sphere of thematic visits.
Committee members and installation
A committee of curators and art historians, composed of Chiara Bertola, Lorenzo Canova, Bruno Corà, Daniela Lancioni and Claudio Spadoni, is responsible for the critical installation of the exhibition as well as the choice of artists to invite to participate.The itinerary of the exhibition extends over 3,000 square metres on the three levels of Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Giulio Turchetta has organized the installation.
Artists
The following artists were featured at the 15th Rome Quadriennale:Jury and Prizes
For the first time in the history of the Rome Quadrennial, the jury, composed of Suzanne Pagé, Director of the Foundation Louis-Vuitton, Gerald Matt, Director of the Kunsthalle of Vienna and Vicente Todolí, Director of the Tate Modern of London, is not Italian.On 12 September 2008, the Prize Jury of the XV Quadrennial awarded the Quadrennial Prize to Adrian Paci, and the Prize for Young Art to Deborah Ligorio. Both Adrian Paci and Deborah Ligorio have participated with video art works.
A career prize was awarded to Maurizio Cattelan. On 24 March 2009, at the MAXXI of Rome, the singer Elio of the Elio e le Storie Tese, who announced that he was the real Cattelan, came to receive the prize, making witty remarks and answering questions from Francesco Prosperetti, Anna Mattirolo, Gino Agnese, Stefano Chiodi, Andrea Cortellessa, Cornelia Lauf and the public that was present.
Catalogue
The exhibition is documented by a catalogue of the works of 320 pages published by Marsilio. The volume opens with critical essays by Chiara Bertola, Lorenzo Canova, Bruno Corà, Daniela Lancioni and Claudio Spadoni.Along the itinerary of the exhibition, it is possible to consult a tactile screen with images of the works and entries about the artists edited by Paola Bonani for the Quadriennale Foundation.