The Italian Cultural Institute in Pretoria is proud to announce the presence of curator Filippo Maggia at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair (February 15-18), one of the largest international art fairs on the African continent.
Born in Biella in 1960, Maggia lives and works between Florence and Modena. Since 1998, he has served as curator of Italian photography and manager of the historical photographic collection at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo di Torino. In 2007, he received a visiting fellowship from the Royal College of Art (London), and is currently a visiting tutor in their Photography Department. From 2000 to 2009, he taught History of Contemporary Photography and Design at the Istituto Europeo di Design di Torino. Nowadays, he is known to have a long list of projects and artistic collaborations under his name with some of the most relevant artists in the field.
As part of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair Curators Program, he will be in Cape Town on 16-18 February. During this time, he will serve as curator of the exhibition The Ship: Hemelliggaam or The Attempt to Be Here Now by photographer and visual artists Tommaso Fiscaletti and Nic Gruber. Tommaso Fiscaletti is no stranger to collaborations with Maggia, having worked together with him several times in the last six years.
The exhibition includes videos, installations and fragments attempting to connect and resonate in the interplay between scientific astronomical activity and everyday awareness of space through a contemporary lens. All the contents, including some inspired by pages of old South African science fiction novels, are about the human journey, how we perceive ourselves and our connection with the cosmos. The focus of the project is on communities, landscapes and objects located in the Western and Northern Cape, South Africa, where the sky is particularly impressive.
For more information about schedule and venues, please refer to the following e-mail address: www.investeccapetownartfair.co.za