Exercises in Memory.
When, at the end of last July, I heard—from afar—that a bomb had exploded at the PAC in Milan and that five people had died in this renewed strategy of tension, I felt an enormous sense of helplessness and anger.

When I learned that Gianni Nigro, son of Mario, whose exhibition was being installed in the now-destroyed spaces, would be showing his photographic reportage from inside the disaster site at Careof, I wanted to participate by setting in motion true exercises in memory.

Thus was born the idea—given the impossibility of reconstructing TOTEM (1965), which was destroyed, and the even more tragic impossibility of restoring life to the victims of the massacre—to reconstruct, through the testimonies of those with whom Mario Nigro had cultivated bonds of affection, closeness, and various forms of collaboration throughout his life, a work that no longer exists.

I therefore see in the exercise of memory, and in the awareness of both one’s own and others’ history, a possible strong reaction to those who, through the use of violence, would seek to impose silence on the collective.

The meaning of the “voices” is not historical, philological, or critical in relation to the Italian and international art scene from the postwar period to today; this project in no way intends to replace the function of the museum that no longer exists (and has yet to return), but rather to give voice to and listen to those who have participated, whether closely or from a distance, in the human and artistic story of Mario Nigro.

With the same resolute will that refuses to accept the logic of bombs, we request that this exhibition take place in an appropriate time and setting.

Thanks to Nicla Falorni, Salvatore Licitra, Paola Lanzani, Tommaso Fontana, Gillo Dorfles, Tommaso Trini, and Pino Jelo, who engaged in their own exercises and made the realization of this project possible.

Emanuela De Cecco