On October 3 opens at the National Gallery the exhibition “It’s just a start. 1968”, the first Italian exhibition dedicated to 1968 and its interweaving with the movements and artistic ferments that announce it, run parallel to it and prolong it. A project that celebrates the 50th anniversary of ’68, curated by Ester Coen, which represents an invitation to look at the processes, at the becoming, at the opening of what begins and will never stop starting, always again, from ’68 onwards. Art, democracy, life, nothing will be the same after that, yet nothing will ever be a sure conquest. What remains of ’68 is not its history, its defeats, its victories, but a warning that becomes a praise of the unfinished: Ce n’est qu’un début. The catalog / newspaper of the exhibition collects prestigious interventions, including that of RUFA teacher Nicolas Martino. Together with him have written Franco Berardi Bifo, Achille Bonito Oliva, Luciana Castellina, Germano Celant, Goffredo Fofi, Franco Piperno, Rossana Rossanda and Lea Vergine.
The exhibition of the National Gallery tells the short circuit between art, politics, creativity. Not only and not so much because the spirit of revolt of ’68 also extends to the world of art, but because art has its own way of creating that same desire to begin that with ’68 is found to share: with minimalism, the conceptual, poor art, land art, the many currents that in those years emerge lightning and propagate, despite the diversity of methods and planning. Together with a radical renewal of thought and the arts of life expressed through design and fashion.
Among the masterpieces on display are the works of Vito Acconci, Carl Andre, Franco Angeli, Giovanni Anselmo, Diane Arbus, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Carla Cerati, Merce Cunningham, Gino De Dominicis, Walter De Maria, Valie Export, Luciano Fabro, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Dan Flavin, Hans Haacke, Eva Hesse, Nancy Holt, Joan Jonas, Donald Judd, Allan Kaprow, Joseph Kosuth, Jannis Kounellis, Yayoi Kusama, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Toshio Matsumoto, Gordon Matta-Clark, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Maurizio Mochetti, Richard Moore, Bruce Nauman, Luigi Ontani, Giulio Paolini, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini, Mario Schifano, Carolee Schneemann, Gerry Schum, Robert Smithson, Bernar Venet, Lawrence Wiener and Gilberto Zorio.
