Der Blitz was first started in 2013 as a supporting project for contemporary culture in the Upper Garda territory. Der Blitz 2014 carries on where the 2013 pilot project left off, broadening its overall scope and proposing the exploration of several of the cultural territories of contemporary art in Italy.
Between May and September, in the main exhibition space of Der Blitz, at the Galleria Civica G. Segantini in Arco, a series of six different projects will be on show by six different artists, three independent spaces and three young curators. The invitation, made to 12 young arts professionals, is contextualised in a series of exhibitions in which they will be encouraged to highlight the research field that they are based in. Der Blitz 2014 aims to constitute a catalyser for the fields of research featured: rather than dwelling on experimentation, it sets out to accelerate the fundamental development processes, thus underlining the generative value that they contain.
On the other hand, from April onwards the Riva del Garda Museum will host a work by the young Riva artist Michele Parisi, to be placed in dialogue with the works of the Picture Gallery of the MAG. Finally, a third element of Der Blitz will be staged between the Casa degli artisti in Tenno and the Museo di Riva del Garda, with two creative residencies and an exhibition to follow.

Der Blitz 2014 sets out to work on the present through the filter of artistic languages; to trace the emergence of avant-garde movements and resiliencies in an attempt which includes a gaze towards all that which is to come, while fully aware of all that which is right behind us. The historical sampling on which Der Blitz 2014 is based sets out from the notion that it is possible to identify the contours of the rift created by the socio-economic crisis throughout the Western world. On the basis of the changes that we have lived through first hand, we may identify the characteristics of the period between 1990 – 2010. The essence of those 20 years that now lie behind us may be summed up in the expansive movement following the fall of the Berlin Wall. The great celebrations ushered in by the victory of capitalism clarified the contours of the art system, certifying the protagonism of contemporary art in the race towards the worldwide protagonism of the territories, and thus underlines the need for public fruition; it authenticates its self-referentiality and thus turns the other cheek to speculation, be it of an intellectual or an economic nature.
Expressive research is often recursively intertwined with these suppositions, both defining it and being defined by it, being both its mirror and its leading light. Following the schema laid down by Terry Smith, we may identify the shadows cast by this research over our own era: remodernist, retro-sensationalist, spectacularist / transnational transitionality / DIY art (art-like output) are the three macro categories to be drawn on for an adequate reading of the present artistic territory. These are general characters which may be both explicated and partially blurred by tracing the interaction that each category entertains with languages belonging to similar disciplines. On one hand, these dangerous liaisons reveal a working method which paves the way towards hybridisation, yet prior to that, they help to affirm other specific aspects of present art and perhaps also of that just gone past. In this manner, some of the stylemes most common to critical literature emerge: the race to catch up with visual communication and thus the languages of advertising and the mass media; the successful commonalities with post-colonist academic research and the nostalgic rediscovery of the visual foundations of modernity, in which architecture and design both play leading roles. We have entered the second decade of the century in the shadow of these columns while in front of us, at least at this latitude, we can make out the breaking dawn of a call for renewal, which in turn is the result of the attempts at the re-modulation of a social, economic and cultural model.
The shockwaves that this re-modulation may bring, despite the staying power of the existent, constitute the reflective framework of Der Blitz 2014. We therefore ask the arts professionals invited to respond by pushing their own research towards its innermost identity. This request calls for the greatest possible valorisation of each artist’s own practice; in other words, Der Blitz aims to offer a space in which research may remain as faithful as possible to its own statute.

Der Blitz 2014 will be accompanied by a catalogue featuring the entire Der Blitz experience throughout the year, including the interventions in Arco, Riva del Garda and the residencies in Canale di Tenno. The catalogue will also feature full documentation of the projects, as well as texts and interviews with the experts invited to take part.

Der Blitz 2014 is:

L'atlante
Arco | Galleria Civica G. Segantini
18.05 – 05.10 2014
Silvia Giambrone | Jacopo Mazzonelli | Alessandra Prandin con Alberto Scodro, Cristian Chironi e Melik Ohanian | Giuseppe Gonella | Roberta Pagani | Francesco Fonassi | Fabrizio Perghem | Chan Arte con Serena Porrati | Gasconade con Alessandro Carano, Giangiacomo Rossetti e Davide Stucchi | Gabriele Sassone con Angelo Sarleti | Cripta 747 | Valentina Miorandi

Dalla finestra entrava il mattino
Michele Parisi
Riva del Garda | Museo
12.04 - 02.11 2014

Cecità bianca
a cura di Chiara Ianeselli
Federico Lanaro e Evgeny Antufyev
Canale di Tenno, Casa degli Artisti | residenza
16.05 - 23.05 / 12.09 - 19.09 2014
Riva del Garda, Museo | mostra
21.09 - 02.11 2014