#AskACurator: for one day all the chatting Twitter users can interact with curators of the leading international museums, a “direct meeting” to satisfy their own curiosities about the artworld, to find out interesting anecdotes hidden beyond the preparation of every exhibition or simply to live the curatorial experience with a closer look. The project is promoted by Mar Dixon, uncontested protagonist of the digital museum world, with a broad and qualified international following. 1253 museums, from 52 different nations, already joined #AskACurator, like MoMA in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris or Tate Gallery in London, and for Italy, among the others, Castello di Rivoli-Museo d’arte contemporanea, Museo del Novecento in Milan and MAXXI in Rome.
Eugenio Viola, Curator at Large, and Silvia Salvati, Exhibition and Collection Coordinator, will answer to the questions addressed by Twitter users to @Museo_MADRE by using the hashtag #AskACurator, and will illustrate the main exhibition projects of the museum. Starting from the work in situ realized by French artist Daniel Buren, Axer / Désaxer. Lavoro in situ, 2015, Madre, Napoli – #2, a huge architectural intervention celebrating the presence, the activity and the necessity of the museum in connection to his public. Moreover, it will be possible to find out the backstage of the current exhibitions: Attesa. 1960-2016, the broadest retrospective ever dedicated to Mimmo Jodice (Naples, 1934), one of the leading master of contemporary photography, and Luna di latte by French artist Camille Henrot, Leone d’argento at 55.Biennial of Venice in 2013.
#AskACurator represents a unique occasion also to have a closer look to the permanent Madre collection, especially the new project Per_forming a collection: for an archive of art in Campania, dedicated in 2016 to the progressive formation of the museum collection, with a reference to the practices of the archive and the purpose of the museum as center of production and diffusion of these practices.
Eugenio Viola, PhD (Naples, 1975) is an art critic and Curator-at-Large at Madre, The Contemporary Art Museum of Naples. He got his Ph.D. in “Methods and Methodologies of Archaeological and Historical-Artistic Research” from the University of Salerno. He is a scholar of theories and practices related to performance and Body Art. On this subject he has extensively lectured in Italy and abroad, he has published several essays, and he has edited the monographs devoted to Regina José Galindo (Ed. Skira, Milan, 2014), Hermann Nitsch (Ed. Morra, Naples, 2013), Marina Abramović (Ed. 24 Ore Cultura, Milan, 2012), and Orlan (Ed. Charta, Milan, 2007). He collaborates on regular basis with “Artforum” (USA). He is a member of IKT (“International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art”) and he is on several awards international committees and panels. At Madre museum he is the curator of the collection; he curated exhibitions devoted to Daniel Buren, Francis Alÿs, Vettor Pisani, Giulia Piscitelli, the network project Transit with the Middle East (Madre Museum, Naples / Townhouse, Cairo / PiST, Istanbul / CCA, Tel Aviv / State Museum, Thessaloniki); and the performance festival Corpus. Art in Action. As a free-lance curator he has curated a number of exhibitions in Italy and abroad, among the others: Karol Radziszewski (CoCA Torun, 2014); Mark Raidpere (EKKM The Contemporary Art Museum of Tallinn, 2013); Marina Abramović (PAC | Padiglione di Arte Contemporanea, Milan, 2012); Orlan (Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole, 2007). He curated the Estonian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennial.
Silvia Salvati (Positano, 1974) graduated with full scores in Communication Sociology at La Sapienza University of Rome and specialized in Museum & Gallery Management with a Master at the City University of London, at Madre museum she runs the exhibition activities since 2007. Her training path also comprehends collaborations in the field of the audiovisual industry, as production assistant for La RAI Radio Televisione Italiana and LA7, as well as curatorial internships at the Victoria&Albert Museum and the Barbican Art Gallery of London. She also worked together with the Crafts Council, Tate Modern, Tate Britain and British Museum, acquiring the competences relatives to the planning and developing of exhibition activities, as to the educational activities correlated, directing for one year the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art educational department.