IX BIENNIAL OF YOUNG ARTISTS FROM EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN – ROMA 1999

29 May – 22 June 1999

 The City of Rome joined the circuit of the Biennial in 1997, after Turin, and was selected to realize the project of a Biennial to be held in two connected phases (1999 and 2001) together with Sarajevo: the two Biennials, in fact, shared some projects, such as an architecture contest and the realization of six workshops.

For the city the Biennial represented an opportunity to improve the guidelines it had outlined in the previous years with regard to the field of youth policies and in particular to give birth, by the City of Rome, to Zoneattive, a private company owned by the City that in the following years was the main local actor in the production of contemporary cultural events. Moreover, the Biennial changed the urban destiny of one of the fundamental quadrants of the city, contributing to the development of the old slaughterhouse of the city, the “Mattatoio of Testaccio”, main venue of the Biennial, changing its use for cultural activities.

The Rome editions proposed a new disciplinary articulation that grouped together the traditional disciplines into the following ones: Applied Arts, Visual Arts, Cinema and Video, Music, Writing, Contemporary Music, Gastronomy, Fashion, Architecture and Perfromance. Furthermore, internationally renowned artists and intellectuals agreed to curate the various sections: Manuel Vazquez Montalban for Writing, Jannis Kounellis for Visual art, Javier Mariscal for Applied arts, Gianfranco Vissani for Gastronomy, Ferzan Ozpetec for Cinema, the band Agrcantus for Music, Jean Claude Gallotta for Performance, Veniero Rizzardi for Contemporary music, Ennio Capasa (Costume National) for Fashion and Zaha Adid for Architecture.

In order to give strength and visibility to the most generally cultural dimension, Rome also hosted a series of conferences that stimulated the debate around the theme of the Biennial: the Other.

Theme: the Other

The theme of this edition was The Other, conceived as the relation with diversities and mostly inspired by the special link between Rome and Sarajevo. The logo of the event was designed by Javier Mariscal, Spanish designer who previously realized the logo for the Barcelona Olympic Games.

Numbers

The Biennial of Rome hosted the works of more than 600 artists from 21 Countries (Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Croatia, Egypt, France, Jordan, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal, Republic of San Marino, Spain, Slovenia, Turkey, Tunisia) and 3 host Countries (Finland, Hungary and Serbia).

The Biennial was also the occasion for an international architecture competition for the design of the Sarajevo Concert-Hall, which would be built in the Parliament Square. To the pre-selection were sent more that 400 projects and the competition ended up with the selection of the winning project (from the architectural office UFO). Although there was a winner, the project couldn’t be realized.

Moreover, like in Turin, a Biennial Off was organized, with a rich program, which included hundreds of local artists. Nearly 90.000 people visited the complex of the Mattatoio.

Some of the most outstanding works of this edition were presented by: Accademia degli Artefatti, theatre company from Rome, Vasco Araujo, visual artist from Portugal, Enna Chaton, visual artist from Marseille, Ziga Kariz, visual artist from Ljubljana, Andreja Kuluncic, visual artist from Rijeka, Giovanni Davide Maderna, video-maker from Milan, Arnaud Mercier, graphic and interactive designer and video-maker from Marseille, Polys Peslikas, visual artists from Cyprus, Tobias Putrih, visual artist from Ljubljana, Second, rock band from Spain, Muruvvet Turkyilmaz, visual artist from Turkey and Zu, band from Rome.

Venues

All the exhibitions took place in the Mattatoio of Testaccio, built at the beginning of the century to industrialize the slaughter of livestock and abandoned for almost 20 years.

The Biennial represented the occasion to develop the entire complex and was the start for a renewal project for a multidisciplinary Cultural Production Centre: La Pelanda, 6.000 squared metres, finally inaugurated on February 2010. 

 

 

 

VIII BIENNIAL OF YOUNG ARTISTS FROM EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN – TORINO 1997
10 Aprile 1997
X BIENNIAL OF YOUNG ARTISTS FROM EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN – SARAJEVO 2001
10 Aprile 2001