The Affitasi/Vendesi project, born in 2014, is the founding element of “Arteealtro”. It consists in the organization of exhibitions, for a duration of up to three months at the most, in private spaces or homes up for sale or rent on the property market. The intent of this project, conceived as a replicable format for both Italian and foreign cities, is to create a synergetic collaboration between the landlords (of the apartments or other spaces) who, by allowing me to make an exhibition in their properties, will in turn have the opportunity of obtaining more visibility and a greater number of potential clients interested in renting or purchasing the homes in question.
The idea implied in every exhibit, is to show the artists’ work in transitory spaces, homes that are temporarily transformed into something else for a brief moment in time, in a space into which the artists enter cautiously, interacting with space surrounding them, sometimes directly with site-specific art works.
In trying to define himself through his creation, the artist occupies the apartment space for the duration of the exhibition, only to abandon it to its new future a few days later, when the show has been dismantled.
The format For Rent/For Sale is mobile and itinerant. By mobile, I mean able to operate in the same way in different cities and countries, finding thus spaces and apartments up for rent or sale which are already on the property market, and using them for the exhibits interchangeably (as in the case of Delphine Valli’s exhibit Les “Révoltes Logiques” inaugurated in a rented apartment in the Parioli area of Rome in May 2014, and later showed in a gallery in Naples in October 2014) By itinerant on the other hand, I mean the possibility for an exhibition to be shown in different legs, in Italy and abroad, presenting it both in institutional spaces such as galleries, museums or foundations, and in alternative spaces such as restaurants, theatre foyers, or unusual dismantled abandoned locations. Considering that Affittasi/Vendesi shows last a couple of months at most, the dislocation or re-visitation in a different space of another city or country is a way to give ulterior visibility to the creations of the artist.
The choice to dislocate the shows implies the re-thinking of the display “ad-hoc”, in function of the new hosting space, and allowing the works in display to reveal themselves from different angles, from a new point of view.
The thing I like about this “Other” way of being a gallerist, is the possibility of offering each time a wide visibility of the art pieces of the artists, enabling to show a wide corpus of creations (including site-specific works whenever possible) as if they were many little “anthologies” in wide spaces not specifically meant and conceived for art, such as houses and apartments.
In my role of “nomadic gallerist” I was compelled to show my endeavours as some sort of “work in progress”. I organize my work and exhibits on an annual basis, but I inevitably move about riding the waves of destiny, and the tricky part for me in this case, is to make the nature of the artist’s work and the space in which it should be exposed coincide. I myself do not know the location of the next show, the public attending my exhibits thus doesn’t either; this creates a healthy buzz, curiosity and expectation which cannot be attained when working in a fixed space, or gallery.
Not having a fixed space (but only a small studio where I work with artists) I consider this website, which I update continuously, an important show case, and that is why, after the critical and public success of “Riprendo il Filo” (“Picking up the threads”) I have decided to seek the collaboration of photographer Luis de Rosario on this project.
With his photos, Luis de Rosario documents the genesis of every show: from the encounter with the artist in his studio, to the location’s first visit; from the various stages of the setting up of the exhibition’s final display, to the evening of the vernissage. Temporary sequences of images compose the narration of the birth of an exhibition as if it were a diary, made up not in writing, but in photographic frames.
In order to immortalize every event, I offer each time the chance of a virtual tour in the space momentarily occupied by works of art, sometimes shooting a video or a “photo in motion” composition that will leave a trace of the particular synergy created between the locations and the works of art.