TOURISM AND ART

by Francesco Bonami

 

With around 700 million people travelling towards international destinations, tourism has become the most prosperous industry in the world. In the “Universal Experience art and life”, the tourist eye looks into the cultural implications of this peculiar phenomenon through the works of 35 artists.
The exhibition started from the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, and after having been at the Haywood Gallery in London, has finally arrived at Mart of Rovereto.

 

A dialogue between the known and the unknown opens up and enriches our lives. In a world of media, full of mirages, tricks and events similar to miracles, it is difficult to find true experiences and unique places. Thanks to the means of communication we have today, we are able to find ourselves in the exact same place as the rest of the world and even see the same things, at the same time. Universal Experience, though, wishes to be one of those fairytale forests, where we can still find a place where nobody else has ever been before. This discovery is, obviously, a pure illusion and fiction; nevertheless these falsehood and illusion can make our lives worth living.
The exhibition is a dialogue among present and future icons. You ask yourself how a tourist attraction becomes a work of art, like the Eiffel Tower for instance, and how a work of art such as the Monna Lisa becomes a touristic attraction. We enter a museum as tourists: facing the mystery of Art we transform ourselves into spectators. As audience for icons such as the Monna Lisa and the Nike of Samothrace we share universal experiences and we become tourists and spectators, and viceversa over and over again. The exhibition consists of a glass-system, in which icons, spectators and tourists reflect their images into one another. Why Universal Experience today? The modern world has tried to convert everything – life, work, family, entertainment – into entertainment business, celebrity industry and mass culture.
Such a conversion wouldn't be possible, if most of what we regard as being important for us today wasn't judged under those parameters: tourism, entertainment business and the famous people industry which have now become what is important in our society, ruled by these brand new means of communication.
Nowadays, a work of art must become famous. Since fame is one of the materials through which contemporary artists express themselves, many works are considered famous even before having actually been created.
Perhaps, contemporary art represents the climax of an authentic experience, since we cannot really get to know it completely. I believe art exhibitions are a failure when they worry wether they would be understood or not, rather than being concerned about the experience they offer. Depriving art of its spontaneity means stealing from ourselves the opportunity of experimenting a possible transformation within us as humans. Our culture, unfortunately, tends to consider spectators as complete idiots, trapped in a world of confusion, lacking desires, curiosity and needs. When people ask me wether Universal Experience will travel, I answer back “you'll be travelling”. I do not want to create expectations. An exhibition like Universal Experience is indeed an experience filtered through the eyes of the visitors, that brings along questions without an answer, keeping our doubts alive.

(excerpt from the essay in the exhibition brochure)