Identity

It is an event that moves in parallel to the art market, with which it shares very little; the market promotes and constructs stars, who, by necessity, remain few in order to consistently drive up prices. In this way art is reduced to a super-luxury good, whilst our aim is to present art as a thing of absolute necessity for all, a good of primary spiritual importance and everyday consumption.

We turn to the youth, starting with those at primary school, convinced that children are receptive to the anti-conventional expressions of art. They look at and observe without prejudice, whereas adults often make futile comparisons with the art of the past. In this context, thanks to the collaboration of the Cremonesi Foundation of the Abbazia di Farfa (Farfa Abbey), we are realizing a playground for children created by artists.

We work with children in schools, as well as through libraries and art institutes, organizing workshops and making available recreational-artistic tools such as the pedagogical cases of Giralut. Our connection with the MLAC, Rome, (Museum Laboratory of Contemporary Art of La Sapienza University) is also important. Thanks to which each year we can count on the participation of many young curators and critics, eager to put their newly gained skills to the test.

The organizers

The non-profit cultural association Arte Multi Visione was founded in 1994, with the intention of promoting multimedia art and contemporary art in general. The association organized, from 1994 and 1998, an international festival of multimedia art that took place in Rieti, during which hundreds of artists from all over the world came together. Many of the works produced during the occasion were subsequently presented at various other multimedia festivals and events, both in Italy and abroad (San Francisco, Nuremburg, Paris, Linz, Bologna, etc.)

Founder and president of the Association is Alberto Tessore, both an artist and cultural operator. For many years he worked as a photo reporter, then as a teacher and an employee of the Italian Cultural Institute in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Through the years he has founded numerous centres of culture, poetry, theatre and the plastic arts. Alberto Tessore has written many books, including the recent Opera d’arte, sì o no? Arte come modo di vivere , (Artwork, yes or no? Art as way of living) in which he examined the often surprising and contradictory relationship between art and the public.

Since 2008 the artistic event has been curated by Emanuele Sbardella , an artist and philosopher who studied curatorship at the MLAC – Museo Laboratorio di Arte Comtemporanea. President of the voluntary organization EmErgEnzE - a permanent laboratory of ephemeral art, he has recently had published an article on the theme of Art without artworks in Àgalma, the journal of aesthetics directed by Mario Perniola.

How it works

The formula of 20eventi is simple yet innovative and effective. It consists in the invitation of a certain number of students from foreign art academies to work in Sabina.

As well as the students, who remain the nucleus of 20eventi, special guests are invited, both Italian and foreign. This is done to enrich the event and to offer the students the opportunity to dialogue with people of greater experience.

The aims are:
- To offer the students the occasion to meet young Italian artists and the inhabitants of the selected villages, giving them the possibility to create projects in situ.
- To bring contemporary art close to the local public, putting them in direct contact with young people who have come from far away and, at the same time, favouring the participation in the project of pre-existing structures from the area (schools, artistic centres and associations, interested private individuals).

It is not simply the offer of an exhibition space, but more an invitation to participate in the construction of 20eventi, a vehicle that promotes an innovative conception of art, the way it is presented and the way it brought to life for the public.

The event, by now routed in the various towns, is working towards realizing a ‘road of art’, the first milestones of which have already been planted; we believe that it is important to insert new aspects of modern culture into the landscape. Not only can they enhance the cultural life and creativity of the towns and villages concerned, but they can also attract a new flow of tourists.