ANGEL MOYA GARCIA

Metronom: Curator, researcher, journalist, since 2012 you have been co-director for the visual arts at Tenuta dello Scompiglio in Vorno (Lucca), and at the beginning of March 2020 you have been appointed head of planning of performance and cultural arts activities of the Mattatoio in Rome. What of your experience at Scompiglio has proved most useful in Rome and what new opportunities for experimentation does Mattatoio offer you?

Angel Moya Garcia: The experience at Scompiglio has led me to gain particular attention and experience in the context of the transversal essence of languages, also in relation to a natural context. We have built our mission precisely on this concept and over the years we have invited a substantial number of artists to deal with other areas of research, reflecting on the boundaries that label and code the areas in order to try, if not to break them down, at least to move them, to minimize their relevance and reconfigure them. The situation in Rome is very different for various reasons. In the context of Mattatoio, the programmatic guidelines had already been outlined by the Azienda Speciale Palaexpo and a performance research hub was under construction. My work in recent months has focused on implementing and conveying these guidelines through research on the convergences between visual and performing arts. I was interested in the idea of constant movement, transformation and evolution, both from the standpoint of setting up and, above all, of the contents, eliminating a priori a more classic cut of construction of an exhibition. On the other hand, in addition to the formal outcomes open to the public, at Mattatoio there is a particular attention to education, already started in an exemplary way with the PACS Master which takes place in La Pelanda, and this is an area that particularly interests me and that can be adapted to many types of audiences.

M: These two places have a very different connotation and nature. How do your research and curatorial practice manage to fit in and modulate in relation to the context in which you find yourself operating?

AMG: I believe that every single curator, as well as every person, must listen to the place where they are located, study the material and mental characteristics of that context, how it presents itself both physically and on the web, the type of audience that goes there and the conditions of the territory in which it is placed, in order to live it and to know how to exploit all the resources available. I begin, before developing any project, by walking around the place, crossing it and observing it from every perspective, talking with the people who work in nearby shops, bars or restaurants to understand how they have lived up to that moment and consequently to be able to draw conclusions on critical issues so as to start working from them.

M: In this particular moment of redefinition of places and ways of experiencing contemporary art, in which the physical spaces of art are only accessible with strong limitations, do you think that the net can offer tools and opportunities to act in the public space and redesign our relationship with it?

AMG: I realize that perhaps for my mentality, for my limit or for belonging to a specific generation, I cannot imagine art completely unbound from physicality. Obviously, I am not talking here of projects created online or the use of new technologies that have now been cleared through customs and recognized culturally even in institutional settings. I see with some envy how many colleagues and many artists have managed in this period to work with a certain normality, working with the network to study new models of use, determining new spaces and relationships, while I remained almost motionless looking for only a few moments of concentration whilst waiting to accustom myself.

M: Can virtual spaces be seen as an extension of the field of action of performative practices and interaction between bodies? How can performance, in its forms, take advantage of the opportunities offered by digital? Could you tell us about a virtuous project that was started or has found a way to develop over the past few months?

AMG: As I have mentioned in other contexts, we have recently witnessed and continue to witness a bulimia of online cultural activities and I believe it is up to each of us to accept or not the risk that these may become mere cultural entertainment or that they may be used only in a consoling way by the public. Personally, I doubt that real and virtual should go against each other, on the contrary, I am convinced that they are parallel planes of interpersonal communication, which support each other, but each one with its own specificities. Precisely for this reason I believe that one cannot replace the other. An exhibition, a show or a concert designed for live use cannot simply be transferred to online and obtain the same incisiveness, just as it would not make sense to transfer interventions designed for the web to a physical reality without effective adaptations and without compromises. An example that I found extremely virtuous and very interesting, both in terms of timing and modality, was the MAMbo of Bologna for how it managed the cultural offer.

M: Periodically our society is hit by moments of crisis that force us to redefine the coordinates of our actions. What can the world of contemporary art learn from what we are experiencing, both in terms of sustainability and in relation to the public?

AMG: History, nature and, consequently, our lives experience cycles that follow or return. I like to think that every great crisis is nothing more than our noticing that the cycle is changing and that we often fail to grasp it while we are crossed by microfractures that cause continuous transformations in our way of life. However, we often see a paradox between the acute phase and the subsequent moments of relaxation of these crises. While in the first one we hope for or remain intimidated by any major changes that will come, in the second one we see how nothing has been completely revolutionized. Just as the great ideologies, the great narratives or the great revolutions do not exist, neither do the great changes, therefore we must study the ephemeral signs, those microfractures I mentioned before to understand how we can incorporate them or how we can adapt to them.

Angel Moya Garcia (Córdoba, Spain, 1980. He lives and works in Florence) is a contemporary art critic and curator. Graduated in Art History at the Universuty of Córdoba, he iscurrently Head of cultural programming and coordination of the events of Mattatoio in Rome, Co-Director for the Visual Arts of Tenuta Dello Scompiglio in Lucca and a member of ICOM Italia – International Council of Museums, of IKT -International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art and of the IAC – Institute of Contemporary Art in Spain. The fundamental dimension of his research focuses on the concept of identity, on the collectivization of the individual and on the deconstruction of the subject in contemporary philosophy. At the same time, it addresses questions on transversality, through the analysis of borders and the identification and deepening of convergences and intersecting lines in the various practices of contemporary life, with a special focus on display and performance languages.

ANGEL MOYA GARCIA

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