Flashbacks – 9. Jan Fabre

BUILDINGBOX presents, from April 9, 2022 to January 7, 2023, Flashbacks, an exhibition curated by Alice Montanini that retraces the most important stages of BUILDING’s artistic research and promotion, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of its birth.
Flashbacks pays tribute to all the artists, curators and essayists who have contributed to shaping BUILDING’s core, presenting for the first time in an organic way a selection of works from the gallery’s permanent collection, accompanied by the catalogues and archive materials that document its curatorial practice over the last five years.
Central to Flashbacks‘ investigation is the moment of the exhibition, here conceived as a medium, mirroring the relationships and dynamics generated between the work, the artist and the gallery space, which flow into the more complex sphere of that system of critical and aesthetic categories that are at the basis of BUILDING’s curatorial approach and programming.
An important focus of Flashbacks is also the catalogues published by BUILDING to accompany each exhibition. BUILDING’s strong focus on study and research, not only as a hub for the promotion of contemporary art but also as a publishing house, is evinced by the careful selection of essayists and texts included in the various publications.

The exhibition will provide an opportunity to think back to the highlights of BUILDING’s curatorial activity, while also looking ahead to the future of its programming. To look back at the recent past with gratitude to all those who have accompanied BUILDING to date, but also with a critical eye, in order to outline new coordinates with which to question the present and better orientate ourselves towards the future.
An open-door reinterpretation of its collection, through some representative works by the main artists promoted by the gallery, and of the curatorial and publishing activity carried out so far, presented in the spaces of BUILDINGBOX at irregular intervals and visible 24/7 from the window of via Monte di Pietà 23 in Milan.

From September 2 to 21, 2022, the BUILDINGBOX venue pays homage to Flemish artist Jan Fabre (Antwerp, 1958), presenting three works from the series he created in 2012, The Castle of Monopoli in the Hour Blue.

These are black and white photographs of the Carlo V Castle in Monopoli overlooking the sea in Puglia, that the artist worked on using blue ballpoint pen, an industrial medium he has employed since the late 1970s and which remains one of the most distinctive aspects of his work. The series bears witness to a major project, never accomplished, for the castle in Puglia, which the artist wanted to cover with a fabric collectively drawn with the blue strokes of a ballpoint pen, an architectural installation reminiscent of the one he created at Tivoli Castle in Malines in 1990. The intense, dusky hue of the ink recalls the atmosphere of the transition between day and night referred to in the title as ‘the hour blue’ (from the French heure bleue), a highly symbolic theme that is very dear to the artist, and has inspired much of his artistic output.

These works were presented at BUILDING in September 2018, on the occasion of Jan Fabre’s evocative solo exhibition “Castles in the Blue Hour” curated by Melania Rossi, which involved not only the gallery venue but also institutional spaces such as the basilica of Sant’Eustorgio and the Portinari Chapel, and presented a rich selection of the artist’s works, most of which had never been exhibited to the public before, including drawings, films, photographic works, sculptures and collages.

Central to Flashbacks’ investigation is the moment of the exhibition, here conceived as a medium, mirroring the relationships and dynamics generated between the work, the artist and the gallery space, which flow into the more complex sphere of that system of critical and aesthetic categories that are at the basis of BUILDING’s curatorial approach and programming.
An important focus of Flashbacks is also the catalogues published by BUILDING to accompany each exhibition. BUILDING’s strong focus on study and research, not only as a hub for the promotion of contemporary art but also as a publishing house, is evinced by the careful selection of essayists and texts included in the various publications.
The exhibition will provide an opportunity to think back to the highlights of BUILDING’s curatorial activity, while also looking ahead to the future of its programming. To look back at the recent past with gratitude to all those who have accompanied BUILDING to date, but also with a critical eye, in order to outline new coordinates with which to question the present and better orientate ourselves towards the future.
An open-door reinterpretation of its collection, through some representative works by the main artists promoted by the gallery, and of the curatorial and publishing activity carried out so far, presented in the spaces of BUILDINGBOX at irregular intervals and visible 24/7 from the window of via Monte di Pietà 23 in Milan.