per roberto



in memory of roberto daolio
from the little constellation network

bologna, 1st july 2013



Roberto Daolio passed away on 29 June. Anthropologist and art critic, he was an outstanding figure of artistic culture and one of the leading exponents of contemporary art criticism in Italy. He was one of the most insightful and refined Italian intellectuals, capable of tracing and interpreting with extreme rigour the cultural processes and changes underlying the most innovative artistic research in recent decades.

Born at Correggio in 1948, he graduated from the DAMS University in Bologna in the 70s. In 1977, together with Renato Barilli and Francesca Alinovi, he organized La Settimana della Performance (Performance Week), an event that put Bologna’s Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna at the centre of international criticism of performance art in those years. It included the participation of a young Marina Abramović with her companion Ulay, at the start of her career with the famous performance Imponderabilia.
Roberto’s name remains closely bound up with the Bolognese art scene of the ’80s and ’90s, together with the activities of the Galleria Neon, established by Francesca Alinovi and directed by Gino Gianuizzi, marking a long period of great vitality and creative experiments.

As an essayist and teacher of notable stature, he taught Cultural Anthropology and the Anthropology of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna.
In addition to numerous curatorial activities, publications and collaborations with leading institutions such as the MoMA/PS1, the Venice Biennale, and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, he was correspondent and art critic for numerous journals, including Flash Art, Linus and national newspapers including La Repubblica.

He had a unique and valuable professional relationship with the Republic of San Marino, through various presentations, conferences and in particular through his curatorship of the site-specific event Provoc’arte in 1991. For this exhibition, designed specifically for the territory of San Marino and extremely innovative for the period, several spaces were opened to the public that had never been used before, such as Il Montale former rail tunnel. This exhibition was attended by numerous artists from all over Italy, many of them at the start of their careers, including Maurizio Cattelan, whose immense talent Roberto Daolio was the first to perceive, curating his early solo exhibitions.

In recent years we remember him above all for his fundamental contribution to the whole research project of the Little Constellation network, of which he was always a strong supporter, active since its inception in 2005. He played a key role in the curatorship of the project, in its implementation and planning, through his intensive theoretical and critical contributions, and in particular in his careful readings of the work and the research of the many artists involved in the network’s projects.
His public presentations were unforgettable: at the Galleria Neon in Bologna in 2009, at the Secretary of State for Education and Culture and the State Library in San Marino, and at the launch of the first exhibition of the Little Constellation network with Friedemann Malsch and Svetlana Racanović at the CareOf/Docva (Fabbrica del Vapore) in Milan in 2010, down to the exhibition The Land seen from the Sea at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Villa Croce in Genoa in 2012. We also wish to remember him for his splendid presentation in the press room of the City of Bologna of the artistic intervention by Lorella Mussoni & Pier Giorgio Albani, Terzo Tempo: il Rugby č un opera d’Arte, performed at the Arcoveggio Stadium in June last year.

The artists and curators of Little Constellation are close to those who were dearest to him, friends, artists and all who knew him with deep affection and esteem, and followed his teachings with gratitude and admiration. Goodbye Roberto!

Rita Canarezza & Pier Paolo Coro
Alessandro Castiglioni
Little Constellation




images:
Roberto Daolio
photo by  Antonio Pascarella

and from The Land Seen from the Sea
Museo d’arte Contemporane di Villa Croce
Genova, march 24th, 2012, photo by  Rita Canarezza

more link:
http://www.artribune.com

http://www.exibart.com/notizia

http://www.undo.net

video presentation at Careof/Docva, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan, march 2010
http://www.undo.net/it/videopool