Near Bologna station and not far from the historic center there is an urban landscape that combines the suspended atmospheres of the metaphysical painting with suggestions of  industrial archeology. The area, which in the Renaissance was the hub of social and economic life of Bologna,
from the nineteenth century underwent a progressive and relentless decline that led to the total abandonment after the Second World War. Completely renovated between 2003 and 2011 and designed by Aldo Rossi, the district is now a cultural hub that is unique in Italy and among the most important in Europe for its size and for the high quality service offered by the institutions which have found their venue here: Cineteca, University, MAMbo, the Museum of  Modern Art and the exhibition structure of Salara, a multipurpose venue of Arcigay club Il Cassero.

The new cultural connotation of the district, renamed “Manifattura delle Arti” to establish the identity of the exhibitions and performances that constantly take place there, has in recent years strengthened with the presence of galleries and nonprofits that have arisen or have moved to the area and decided to join forces to engage a wider audience. UnlikeDe Chirico’s silent and deserted architectural backgrounds from which Aldo Rossi drew inspiration, the Manufacture is today the beating heart of contemporary creativity, which borders their usual venues to expand into site-specific interventions that affect the streets and buildings of the district. In particular, four young galleries – CAR drde , GALLLERIAPIÙ , LOCALEDUE and P420 – decided to create a system and coordinate their events to amplify the offer to appeal to an international audience following the pattern of the major worldwide capitals. United by an experimental character and by the interest art research, they are pursuing the common objective to revitalize the social life of the area and reinforce the dialogue with the institutions with projects of large cultural breath that are linked with the life of the city. The first event which sanctions this declaration of intent will be the joint inauguration of the autumn exhibitions opening that will be held on Saturday, September 26, which is conceived as a path – event that brings together and compares different ways of thinking and artistic practices .

CAR drde presents Geometrie per un canone rovesciato by David Casini, which through its complex and fragile metal structures with porcelain inserts analyzes and reinterprets in a contemporary way the Lamentation of  Niccolò dell’Arca that is kept inside the Church of Santa Maria della Vita in Bologna. The seven sculptures on display recall the seven characters of the fifteenth-century masterpiece of which the artist isolates gestures and trends in search of new compositional rhythms that maintain the same symbolic density of the original sculpture. GALLLERIAPIÙ hosts a stage of the mapping project of the places affected by gentrification processes by the international duo Felix & Mumford. In ten days of residency the artists have collected, classified, selected and rearranged graffiti and tags in the neighborhood and combined them with phrases extracted from an academic article in which Giorgia Aiello examines the processes of upgrading the Manufacture of the Arts district. The work on canvas present in gallery, which reproduce these visual signs of resistance to the planning process imposed from above, is accompanied by a map that invites to explore the road as an open-air museum.

LOCALEDUE will harbour, at night, the quadrupeds sculptures by Cuoghi Corsello duo that during the day will “graze” among the people in the front square that resembles a hill. Quadruped is a being born as comic in the first half of the 90s, a creature that does not have the same human senses and that can suggest new sentient modalities in an empathic way. Recycled fragments of a post – heroic world, these found, made ​​or created creatures may be found everywhere, just under the threshold of our attention.

P420 inaugurates the first Italian solo show of the German photographer Joachim Schmid, who in 1989 declared his intention not to photograph anything more until all the existing images -even then those who do not aspire to be “artistic” – have not been used. During more than three decades he systematically collects any kind of photo that he picked up in the street or bought in markets, forming an immense archive of found images that bring out the dark potential of the photographic medium now used by millions of individuals.

Info:
DAVID CASINI. GEOMETRIE PER UN CANONE ROVESCIATO
dal 26 settembre al 14 novembre 2015
CAR drde – Via Azzo Gardino 14/a, Bologna

FELIX & MUMFORD. CODEX – MAPPING MANIFATTURA DELLE ARTI IN BOLOGNA
dal 26 settembre al 21 novembre 2015
GALLLERIA+ – Via del porto 48 a/b, Bologna

CUOGHI CORSELLO. QUADRUPEDI AL PASCOLO a cura di Gabriele Tosi
dal 26 settembre al  10 ottobre 2015
LOCALEDUE – Via Azzo Gardino 12c, Bologna

JOACHIM SCHMID. SOUVENIRS
dal 26 settembre al 14 novembre 2015
P420 – Piazza dei Martiri 5/2, Bologna