Who we are


Isola Art Center

The name Isola Art Center comes from the Isola neighbourhood in Milan, where the Center is operating since 2001.

The story of Isola Art Center comprises three phases. For the first two years it operated with no permanent venues, overlapping with diverse neighbourhood events. Later, it worked for four years with a space, squatting 1500 square metres in an abandoned factory (a ’dirty cube‘). For the following four years, it has been a guest of other friendly spaces throughout the neighbourhood (the ’scattered museum’). In the past few months, it has been actively researching a book documenting and discussing its rich, and eventful, history.

Since 2001, the inhabitants of the Isola neighbourhood have engaged in the defence of their only public space, the Stecca degli artigiani and the nearby park, doomed to be privatized, constructed and gentrified. In the same year began Isola Art Project with the first interventions in contemporary art.

In 2002 out-the Office for Urban Transformation, was opened within the Stecca: a meeting place and action platform for artists, architects, critics, curators and neighbourhood associations.
Since 2003, the association Isola dell’Arte occupied the second floor of the Stecca, a former factory and started working towards a Center for Contemporary Art.

From 2003 to 2007 the Center has been cooperating with the neighbourhood associations to convert former industrial building Stecca and the two nearby parks in a Center for Art and Community Life. The exhibition space on the second floor has allowed artists, critics, curators, philosophers, and inhabitants in general, to create Milan’s most dynamic situation of contemporary artistic research.
Isola Art Center was officially inaugurated in 2005 by provincial government’s cultural delegate Daniela Benelli.

In April 2007 the city government and real estate multinational Hines have cleared the Stecca, evicting Isola Art Center and the craftspeople and associations, subsequently proceeding to the demolition of the building and a partial destruction of the Center's collection. The operation was aimed at delivering the Stecca and park to the corporation, so as to develop new buildings summing up to over 90.000 m3. The latest project for the area, signed by Boeri Studio, involves underground parking lots, luxury dwellings and two tree-covered towers called ‘vertical forest’ in place of the present park, added to the construction of a 30.000 m3 building with parking lots, offices and a shopping mall to be built by the Italian Ligresti group.
The strong connection of Isola Art Center to the territory has allowed us to survive the eviction and carry on with our activities, using the neighbourhood itself as our acting space.

The project's conceptual bases

The choice of working within a local urban struggle, taking a clear stance in favour of the citizens’ movement and the alternatives it fought for, against neo-liberal government policies and corporate real estate speculations, requires the extension of a concept such as ‘site-specificity’ to the new notion of ‘fight-specificity’. A site is determined by the people living and working in it. If those people – as in the Isola neighbourhood – are organised and, mobilizing the conditions arise for a ‘fight-specific’ art.

Since its outset, Isola Art Center’s gamble has been the creation of an open and dynamic experimentation platform, combining international-level contemporary art, emerging young art an theoretical research, with the needs and desires of a mixed, working-class neighbourhood’s inhabitants, affecting such neighbourhood’s transformation.

A precarious, extremely local project amidst a situation of global, conflictual transformations. Isola Art Center has chosen not to repeat pre-established institutional models, as in New York City, London, Paris or Berlin, creating instead a new form of Art Center apt for a prolonged cultural, social, economical and political crisis. It still remains a no-budget project, functioning only through energy, enthusiasm and solidarity.

To understand the Center’s nature one has to consider that its organizational structure is all but top-down, monolithic: there is no director or curator deciding the program and projects. Neither is it an artist-run space, where a group of artists holds its exhibitions inviting friends all along. The Centre is instead characterized by its flexible, open, rhizomatic structure, lacking a pre-established hierarchy.

In this sense a series of projects confided to invited curators and artists could serve as an example, such as Chechnya Emergency Biennial, November 2005, curated by Evelyne Jouanno, Women Shi Gaibian, October 2005, with artists from Canton, China, curated by Martina Koeppel-Yang, The Art Community, May-June 2006, with over 500 artist portraits by Wolfgang Träger, and many more. As well as our so-called Picnics, which have allowed art spaces from Turin, Pescara and Piacenza to design and wholly realize shows in Milan. In such cases Isola Art Center has opened its venues, offering services such as communication and set-up assistance.

Such ‘external’ contributions have proved complementary to the projects of artists and curators more consistently involved with the Center’s construction; among them are Marco Scotini, Roberto Pinto, Adrian Paci, and many others.

The rhizomatic aspect can be made clear through the contribution of the aforementioned groups, autonomously operating within the Centre. For example, Osservatorio inOpera has produced, besides videos, actions and installations, two issues of its Bollettino multimano, focusing on the destruction of works of art and on the neighbourhood’s situation.
The most recent collective of artists and curators formed to work in the Isola movement is called Fuori dal Vaso.

Yet another rhizome develops from the social fabric: the work carried out for years with the neighbourhood association and the foundation of Forum Isola have led to the creation of a new public for contemporary art in the area. The inhabitants participate in many ways to the Center’s activities, either helping in the realization of some works (such as Tomas Saraceno’s museo aero solar, or the shutters of our Permanent Green show) or hosting international artists with local families, or participating in actions, performances and labs, proposing new projects in neighbourhood venues. Such a participation has been, from its outset, spontaneous, for the Center’s action field has since its start been the neighbourhood’s public social space, instead of closed exhibition venues. The need for a Center for Art and Community Life has thus been originally expressed by the inhabitants themselves.

After losing the two parks and the 1500-square-metres exhibition spaces, the struggle for green areas and a self-organised community centre isn’t over. A new project, with similar aims, has started after finding an abandoned lot owned by the city administration in via Pepe. Isola Art Center is currently working, with the Isola Pepe Verde association, to create in this area a community park with a pavilion for art and neighbourhood activities.

Footnotes:
1. Hines is a privately owned real estate firm with a presence in more than 100 cities around the globe. Currently, the firm declares controling assets valued at approximately $23.7 billion. The company's headquarters are in Houston, Texas and London. Together with the biggest Italian real estate group Ligresti, they are develloping the huge area near the city centre of Milan, called Garibaldi-Repubblica-Varesine-Isola.
2. Bolletino multimano is a publication in Italian and English an means "multi-hand bulletin".
3. Fuori dal vaso means "out of the pot" and refers to the fact that plants should be planted in the ground for a new park in the district. But in colloquial language it has a second ironical meaning:"to piss beside the toilet bowl" and thus "behaving in a not accepted provocative way".


Bert Theis for Isola Art Center, 2011

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A radiography of the Center

Since its outset, Isola Art Center’s gamble has been the creation of an open and dynamic experimentation platform, combining international-level contemporary art, emerging young art an theoretical research, with the needs and desires of a mixed, working-class neighborhood’s inhabitants, affecting such neighborhood’s transformation. A precarious, extremely local project amidst a situation of global, conflictual transformations. Isola Art Center has chosen not to repeat pre-established institutional models, as in NYC, Paris or Berlin, creating instead a new form of Art Center apt for a prolonged cultural, social, economical and political crisis. It still remains a “no-budget” project, functioning only through energy, enthusiasm and solidarity.
To understand the Center’s nature one has to consider that its organizational structure is all but top-down, monolithic: there is no director or curator deciding the program and projects. Neither is it an “artist-run space”, where a group of artists holds its exhibitions inviting friends all along. The center is instead characterized by its flexible, open, rhizomatic structure, lacking a pre-established hierarchy.
In this sense a series of projects confided to invited curators and artists could serve as an example, such as “Chechnya Emergency Biennial” curated by Evelyne Jouanno, “Women Shi Gaibian” with artists from Canton, China, curated by Martina Koeppel-Yang, “The Art Community” with over 500 artist portraits by Wolfgang Träger, and many more. As well as our “Picnics”, which have allowed art spaces from Turin, Pescara and Piacenza to design and wholly realize shows in Milan. In such cases Isola Art Center has opened its venues, offering services such as communication and set-up assistance.
Such “external” contributions have proved complementary to the projects of artists and curators more consistently involved with the Center’s Construction; among them are Alessandra Poggianti, Katia Anguelova, Marco Scotini, Roberto Pinto, Stefano Boccalini, Paola di Bello, Adrian Paci, Fani Zguro and others.
The rhizomatic aspect can be made cleared through the contribution of the aforementioned groups, autonomously operating within the center. For example, Osservatorio inOpera has produced, besides videos, actions and installations, two issues of its “Bollettino multimano”, focusing on the destruction of works of art and on the neighborhood’s situation.
Yet another rhizome develops from the social fabric: the work carried out for years with the neighborhood association and the foundation of Forum Isola have led to the creation of a new public for contemporary art in the area. The inhabitants participate in many ways to the Center’s activities, either helping in the realization of some works (such as Tomas Saraceno’s Museo aero solar, or the shutters of our Permanent Green show) or hosting international artists with local families, or participating in actions, performances and labs, proposing new projects in neighborhood venues. Such a participation has been, from its outset, spontaneous, for the Center’s action field has since its start been the neighborhood’s public social space, instead of closed exhibition venues. The need for a Center for Art and Community Life has thus been originally expressed by the inhabitants themselves.

Bert Theis 2008



Isola Art Center

Isola Art Center’s history spans through seven years now. From 2003 to 2007 the Center has been cooperating with Forum Isola to convert former industrial building “Stecca degli artigiani” in a Center for art and community life. The exhibition space on the second floor has allowed artists, critics, curators, philosophers and inhabitants in general to create Milan’s most dynamic situation of contemporary artistic research. The Center remains a laboratory offering an experimental platform to contemporary art, acting with interdisciplinary methods, international yet firmly rooted in the local social fabric, with the long-term aim of opposing political decisions and urban design projects that will have a negative impact on the neighbourhood. Since 2001, the inhabitants have engaged in the defence of their only public space, the Stecca and the nearby park, doomed to be privatized.
In the same year began the first interventions in contemporary art. In 2002 the Office for Urban Transformation, out, was opened within the Stecca: a meeting place for artists, architects, critics, curators and neighborhood associations. Since 2003, the association Isola dell’Arte started working towards a Center for contemporary art, while other organizations autonomously developed social activities. Throughout the years, works of artists such as Stefano Arienti, Massimo Bartolini, Tania Bruguera, Loris Cecchini, Gabriele Di Matteo, King’s, Luca Pancrazzi, Dan Perjovschi, Marjetica Potrc and Vedovamazzei, specifically conceived for the Stecca, have entered the Center’s ideal “permanent collection”.

Isola Art Center was officially inaugurated in 2005 by provincial government’s cultural delegate Daniela Benelli. The Center belongs today to the Province of Milan’s inContemporanea network, and has hosted various cultural and social projects, such as Love Difference, Osservatorio inOpera, Werkstatt, Stazione Isola, Millepiani, Undo.net, Forum Isola. A joint effort of these associations, with artists such as Tomas Saraceno, has given shape to the innovative project of a Center for art and community life within the neighborhood park. Today, Isola Art Center has held 29 exhibitions, 13 special projects and 28 conferences, bringing in Isola over 200 artists from all over the world and lodging them in the inhabitant’s homes. Throughout the years the Center has cooperated with academics and students from a wide range of universities; it is presently very well recognized on an international scale, and was recently invited to Geneva’s Mamco Museum, Istanbul Biennial and London’s Goldsmiths College.
In April 2007 the city government and real estate multinational Hines have cleared the Stecca, evicting Isola Art Center and the craftspeople and associations, subsequently proceeding to the demolition of the building. The operation was aimed at delivering the Stecca and park to the corporation, so as to develop new buildings summing up to over 90.000 m3. The latest project for the area, signed by Boeri Studio, involves underground parking lots, luxury dwellings and two tree-covered towers called “vertical forest” in place of the present park, added to the construction of a 30.000 m3 building with parking lots, offices and a shopping mall to be built by the Italian Ligresti group.
The strong connection of Isola Art Center to the territory has allowed us to survive the eviction and carry on with our activities, using the neighbourhood itself as our acting space. Hosted by other venues, such as associations, shops, public spaces, we have created a field of cooperations eventually engendering new possibilities.

Bert Theis, Vincenzo Latronico 2008



Isola. Tactics and transitions

Isola Art Center should be considered a platform, which’s definitions and transformations have constantly paralleled the political context. Its activities have necessarily been diversified, never organized through pre-established methodologies; instead it has searched each time for different processes, in close relation to the actual needs. This led to the creation of a research, experimentation and development device, aimed not at the definition of a territory of its own, but at the proliferation of methodologies and activities both creative and temporary – and, as such, non-capitalizable. Tactics, instead of strategies, which following Michel de Certeau’s definition, activate interventions and operations within the territories produced by power’s strategies.

During the first phase within the Stecca degli Artigiani, Isola Art Center operated as a poacher, adopting the most radical and diverse practices, ranging from the creation of labs to the holding of discussion boards, from the production of projects conceived for precarious spaces to the involvement of internationally meaningful events. Everything has been realized in contingency, constantly playing with different events in order to turn them into favorable “occasions”. “New Museum” was one of the last interventions before the building was demolished: a ten-meter long neon sign installed on the Stecca’s roof. The project, realized by Kings (Federica Perazzoli and Daniele Innamorato), seeks the legitimating of the space; it paradoxically renders official the presence of a clandestine node. The building was destroyed little after. That sign is presented today in the Milan Triennial, in “inContemporanea” project, promoted by the Milan Provincial government. The neon no longer indicates the existence of a space; instead, it signals a transition through which our tactics are re-conceptualizing different moves within the established domain. Lost the cube, Isola Art Center now deploys into and out to the neighborhood itself.

Hosted by other venues such as associations, shops and public spaces, it creates a human network based on solidarity, allowing the re-invention of the relations between individual and social bodies. This implies as well, rethinking the public arena as a space for actions looking for the transformation of the social structure, into a creative and generative organism.
The constant redefinition of an Art Center by artists, critics, curators, and intellectuals, together with the people of the neighborhood, has opened new possibilities of resistance against a violent banalization process, which implies the destruction of “difference” and the singularity of today’s “differential spaces”. The context gave the ‘lexicon’, designing “the circumstances in which the fact is being re-inscribed”.

Alessandra Poggianti 2008


Millepiani, philosophers in Isola.

“The ones elected to art or philosophy don’t belong to a pure race, but to the oppressed, the bastards, the anarchists, the lowest class, something that cannot be but minor... (Deleuze – Guattari, 1991).”

Millepiani was born in 1994 out of the need to grant a new expression to all those instances of thought that involve one’s betting oneself with life and its manifold becomings. To date, Millepiani has published 22 issues of its journal, specially focused on themes such as biopolitics, urban transformations, art, bodies, and on authors such as Deleuze, Foucault, Guattari, Gorz… The editorial board consists of Tiziana Villani, Roberto Callegari, Ubaldo Fadini, Francesco Galluzzi, Thierry Paquot and Paul Virilio; all of them are actively involved within Isola Art Center. Holding seminars, conferences, presentations on how art and philosophy can integrate each other Millepiani has granted a theoretical framework to the Center’s polyhedric activities. From 2004 to 2007, Millepiani has held a series of meetings and interdisciplinary philosophy labs in cooperation with out – office for urban transformation. “Effetto Deleuze” was a lab aimed at bringing on the field the various forms of knowledge with a cast of dice – as Nietszche taught – and had nothing to do with any sort of tentative comment. “The Becoming-urban” presupposed a comprehension of the plasticity of urban projects connected to everyday uses and practices, to the relationship with bodies and existences, to the problems of identity and research of new expressive forms – the latter construed as a kind of liberation act.
www.millepiani.org



ISOLA ART CENTER IDENTIKIT

The center’s name comes from the Isola neighborhood in Milan, where the center is being established. It’s an art center outside the mainstream. It is made up of a 1,500 square meter exhibition area on the second floor of a partially occupied former factory – owned by the City – known as the “Stecca degli Artigiani”. The building and the two adjacent parks are in the middle of a dispute between the neighborhood and City Hall; the City plans to privatize the whole area and eliminate the parks. The urban plans connected to the development of the “Garibaldi-Repubblica” area call for the construction of some skyscrapers, a mall, and a connecting road that would cut the neighborhood in two. The neighborhood associations, however, refuse to accept this project and stand in favor of recovering the whole area – including the parks and the “Stecca” building – aiming to save the quality of the public spaces without reducing their area.

In this dispute, the promotion of a recreational center outfitted with an art center helped to strengthen the neighborhood’s position. The project is promoted by the Isola dell’Arte association, with the patronage of numerous representatives of the Milanese, Italian, and international art communities.
This joint initiative helped to bring to light two of Milan’s problems: on one hand, the lack of public spaces for contemporary art, and, on the other hand, the risk of obliterating public spaces in historic neighborhoods. Creating the new “Isola Art & Community Center” furthers the defense of the public spaces and the identity of the neighborhood. At the same time, the effort of the neighborhood associations helps to conquer and defend spaces for artistic experimentation.
Today, the project is being built and self-managed by various entities that operate inside it: the Isola dell’Arte association, the Out office, the Sugoe workshop (young artists and designers), the philosophy review Millepiani, the “Love Difference” movement, and the inOpera observatory. The center is open to external collaborations, through the “picnic” projects, giving to other galleries and art collections the opportunity of holding independent exhibits in the center’s spaces. Various exhibitions are organized in collaboration with fine arts academies. In April of 2005 the Province of Milan’s Councilman for Culture “officially” inaugurated Isola Art Center.


Bert Theis, Alberto Pesavento 2005
(translated from the Italian by Raphael Amabile)