Mnemonic City: Beautiful Banality follows the same basic principles of previous Mnemonic City projects in London and Madrid. What makes this instance unique in its approach so far is that it is the first time the project is undertaken in the form of a residency, therefore naturally bringing the artists together even closer. For the previous show, Inter-Scape, the group spent a few days camping out together in a North London post-industrial wasteland. The contrast could hardly be bigger this time with an entire month spent in one of the most historic, cultured and beautiful cities in the world: Florence. This intensity brought the collaboration to a new artistic level, and was also evident in the fact that there were several Magma Collective events taking place in the city from May until the end of June 2014. It began with an exhibition at the Biagiotti Foundation in a sort of preview of what was about to descend on Florence – showing some of the works created in previous editions of Mnemonic City – and concluded with a big exhibition at Galleria Xenos, showing the artworks produce during the time in Florence. And it would not be a true Mnemonic City project, were the results not asking questions, sometimes perhaps uncomfortable ones, thereby challenging conventional notions of beauty and culture.
For the main project, Magma Collective joined forces with Il Gatta Rossa, the most cutting edge experimental art group in Florence, to engage in a collaborative search for the identity of this strange city. By fostering a personal connection with the members of the local collective and their native environment the two groups created an active and multi-layered map of the experience through a joint research. This included the typical Mnemonic Walks, where the members of the group(s) explore an area together, drawing from concepts such as Psychogeography or the Situationist movement. Over time, the two groups, who initially had distinctively different perspectives, gradually found a common ground in the idea of a divided, quasi-schizoid city: the extreme beauty of the tourists’ Florence on the one hand, and the ‘real’, often socially neglected Florence, on the other. Somehow, all the artists involved seemed to perceive this deeply and this became the philosophical spine of the final exhibition in late June.
Galleria Xenos, where the resulting work was shown, acted as a workshop, studio and meeting ground, a veritable crater of creativity and communication during the entire duration of the project.
Mnemonic City: Beautiful Banality was on show at Galleria Xenos in the centre of Florence, Italy, from the 27 to 30 of June 2014. Participating artists were Alberto Gori, Anna Burel, Anna Capolupo, Bill Howard, Ines von Bonhorst, Jaime Valtierra, João Cristóvão Leitão, Laura Calloni, Pascal Ancel Bartholdi, Rodrigo Cesar, Rupert Jaeger, Sebastiano Benegiamo, Yasmine Dainelli and Yuri Pirondi.
The partners involved in the project were: Foundation Biagiotti Progetto Arte, Gattarossa, Mona Lisa Day, Visualcontainer, Lab Film Festival and Something Human. A special thanks to Jacopo Rachlik and Ken Thai.
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Yasmine Dainelli, who is originally from Florence, Italy, studied under Professor Adriano Bimbi at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, after which she obtained a Master’s Degree in printmaking from the International School of Graphic Art – the “Il Bisonte” – in Florence.
Mnemonic City 