In December BASE Milan hosts the seventeenth stage of the New Grand Tour, the multidisciplinary program of artistic residences for young European talents promoted by the French Embassy in Italy and the Institut Français Italia.
NUOVO GRAND TOUR
Since September 1st, almost fifty French and German artists under the age of 30 have been housed in eighteen partner residences throughout Italy. From Piedmont to Puglia, from Lombardy to Tuscany, passing through Basilicata, Abruzzo, Sicily, Campania, but also Veneto and Sardinia.
The Nuovo Grand Tour traces a symbolic “heart map”, reflecting the strong and lasting cultural ties between Italy and France revisiting the historical tradition of the Grand Tour that, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, allowed young intellectuals, artistз and writer in Europe to travel to discover the artistic heritage of the peninsula and to perfect their education.
Nuovo Grand Tour has connected different realities throughout Italy, offering artists the opportunity to stay in frescoed buildings or in old industrial buildings, in houses undergoing renovation of ancient mining villages, or in an artist’s villa at the foot of Vesuvius. Making the whole of Italy a creative laboratory, the artistз have at their disposal a favorable environment to dream, inspire or experiment, but also the curatorial support of a team of passionate professionals, in each residence, constitute a valuable bond with the country, opening moments of sharing or meeting, the return of a stage of work, or even an invitation to programming at the end of the residency.
The fifty artists of this first edition were chosen by the heads of each of the residences that host them, in dialogue with a jury of professionals and artists composed of: Francesca Corona, artistic director of the Festival d’Automne in Paris, Olivier Dubois, dancer and choreographer, Luca Lo Pinto, artistic director of MACRO in Rome, Emmanuelle Orenga de Gaffory, director of the Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris, and Morgane Tschiember, visual artist.
THE INSTALLATION
Located in different regions of Italy, the fifty artists of the New Grand Tour will come together in the realization of an original final project: a collective installation of fifty flags designed by each of these creators – visual and performative artists – which will be presented at Palazzo Farnese in Rome. This installation, symbolically embodying the spirit of the New Grand Tour, will become the ambassador of the program and its diversity.
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCY AT BASE
Christopher Amm – visual artist. He uses murals, drawings, artist’s books, works on paper, objects and films. In his work and collaborations – lectures and theatre productions – he questions the correlations between the arts and social and historical issues.
Rosalie Piras deals with the design of spaces and objects, working on the concept of social design. He wonders about alternative ways of living in the city in everyday life. It creates common spaces, ephemeral modules, conducive to encounter, social interactions related to the territory, its inhabitants, their desires and their needs.
in collettivo Elisabeth Verrat – artist and photographer – e Alban Magd. “We combine our practice as artists and designers since our meeting at the Pavillon Bosio in Monaco. We wish to travel and discover cities, to rub shoulders with their stories. We seek to create a dialogue between art, city and inhabitants, by proposing a new reading of the history of the city. Our works, sculptures resulting from forms explored on the territory, are exposed in situ“.