Lecture by architect Pippo Ciorra at National Gallery of Art

Photography: Vita Soltonaitė

Photography: Vita Soltonaitė

WHO: The architecture [news] fund invite to the Pippo Ciorra lecture ‘MAXX-ist architecture. curating as a form of theory’.
WHEN: The talk will be held in English and will take place on January 11th. Starts at 20:00. Entrance is free.

HOW THE SPEAKER IS EXCEPTIONAL?
Architect, critic and professor, member of the editorial board of “Casabella” from 1996 to 2012, he collaborates with journals, reviews and national press and is author of many essays and publications. In 2011 he has published an overview of the conditions of architecture in Italy, „Senza architettura, le ragioni per una crisi“ (Laterza). Author of a number of books and, he’s published monographic studies on Ludovico Quaroni (Electa, 1989), Peter Eisenman (Electa, 1993), and then on museums, city, photography and contemporary Italian architecture. He teaches design and theory at SAAD (University of Camerino) and is the director of the international PhD program “Villard d’Honnecourt” (IUAV). He’s a member of CICA (International Committee of Architectural Critics), advisor for the award “Gold Medal of the Italian architecture”. He’s been chairing or participating to juries for national and international design competitions. In 2016 was part of then jury for the XV Architecture Biennale in Venice. He has curated and designed exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Since 2009, he is Senior Curator of MAXXI Architettura in Rome. Among his major exhibitions, „Re-cycle“, „Energy, Food.“ „Piccole Utopie“ is a traveling show on ten Italian architects. He curates the Italian branch of YAP, the MoMA PS1 international program for young architects.

WHY THE TALK IS INSPIRING?
The context of contemporary art scene has changed dramatically, so does the way we see architectural exhibitions. Nowadays, it is an exciting experimental site of testing, dissemination, and consensus building. Also, the concept of architecture curating has stretched enormously, which is why it can be seen as a platform for atmospherics, contextualization, as a well as for activism and storytelling. In the light of this, it is highly important to familiarise yourself with the latest architectural research and criticism, and be able to draw the lineages and historical traces, that will allow you to reconstruct both the explicit and the unconscious political and cultural haunts of the architecture. Pippo Ciorra a marvellous Italian architect, also known as a professor and a curator of architectural exhibitions, will reflect on the discipline and share his experience from the most recent exhibitions in Italy and abroad.
The lecture will be addressing the role of the museum in its different aspects: the museum as a place for the preservation/communication of an architectural legacy; the museum as an agent of theory and criticism, aiming at an active – and non-objective- mapping of contemporary figures and tendencies in architecture, with a specific attention to younger generations; the museum as an open field of exploration, challenging both the disciplinary and physical boundaries of the institution: on the one hand entering hybrid fields with art, politics, photography and other languages, on then other exploring the possibility of expanding the museum’s agency beyond its own walls, out in the city and landscape.

The talk organised by Architecture[news]fund and Lithuanian Culture Institute.
The talk is presented by Modern art center (MMC).