CONTEXTO

Edolo (BS)
2016-2018

CONTEXTO 2016
Giuseppe Frangi

The road up to Edolo is full of places dear to Giovanni Testori. It begins with the Romanesque triptych of Pisogne, Breno and Bienno: unforgettable walls, pulsating with the creative freedom of this great artist, a true symbol of the Lombard anti-Renaissance. The next stop is Cerveno, where you can admire the extraordinary Via Crucis by Beniamino Simoni, which Testori himself discovered at the end of the 1970s. Finally, Capo di Ponte, which was beyond his historical-artistic competence, but not his literary fantasies: how many times the “pitoti” recur in his texts, evocations of a culture capable of taking root in the rock.
These are all now familiar presences that have accompanied us in the undertaking of Contexto 2016.
This is why Testori will be evoked at the start of the route in the Town Hall, as well as by the works created for the occasion by Mauro Maffezzoni, d’aprés of the Romanesque frescoes.
Contexto 2016 is an undertaking in which Casa Testori has put its double matrix into play: that of a place linked to the history of one of the most interesting and vital Lombard intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century and that of a structure that is at the forefront in promoting young artists. In these seven years of history, more than 120 new talents have been able to exhibit in the rooms of Giovanni Testori’s house on the outskirts of Milan.
Some of them have taken up the challenge of Contexto 2016. A challenge that we wanted to interpret with the same spirit with which we open the spaces of Casa Testori every time: a great trust in the energy of art, able to give impetus to the life of our time. The orange that from Christo’s magnificent utopia become reality on the Lago d’Iseo (Iseo Lake), passes to the logo and to the big cable that is the common thread of this edition, is the colour symbol of this vitality, of this ability to surprise, that the artists will pour for two months among the streets and the houses of this magnificent country. Theirs are forward-looking glances full of poetry; they are also shocks of confidence and passion, capable of “making Contexto”. That is, to contaminate places. But also of establishing a “con-text”. That is, a common “text” between those who create and those who participate as curious observers, critics, and in the end happily accomplices of this great, beautiful festival of art in the mountains. Because Contexto wants and must be a festival.

THE EXHIBITION

Contexto is a widespread art exhibition that invaded the municipality of Edolo, winding its way through the streets and squares of the historic centre in open and closed public spaces. Contexto involved more than 60 young artists, many of whom are already known to the national and international public, who presented their sculptures, installations, videos, photographs and paintings.

From the second to the fourth edition, Contexto was realised under the artistic direction of Casa Testori.