The School for Curatorial Studies Venice cooperates with the Berlin The Fairest for the new show “Non Playable Character”

The School for Curatorial Studies Venice cooperates with a Berlin platform The most beautiful to present his latest exhibition Non-playable character. Presented as a teaser 04 of The Fairest’s activities, the group show featuring Venetian and international artists explores the overarching value of collaboration, community and collaboration with others. It will open on April 19th and will be on display until April 30th in the first grade public secondary school “Pier Fortunato Calvi”, between the Arsenale headquarters and the Giardini of the Venice Biennale.

Exhibition of works by around 30 artists, Non-playable character focuses on “play” in its multiple declensions to analyze notions of community and human interactions. The artworks on display occupy all the spaces of the institute, from the gym to the music room to the bathrooms, and seek to deconstruct the nature of play by examining its connections to many human disciplines. Visitors, including students from the institute that plays a key role in this show, are invited to actively participate in this deconstruction. You will exhaust all the keys to interpretation offered by the diverse spectrum of interventions shown.

Nowadays, the idea of ​​the “game” seems to be increasingly detaching itself from the socio-cultural sphere, being more and more relegated to a solitary and virtual activity, or being demonized as silly, frivolous and inconclusive. However, especially in the past, this was not the case, since playful activities were not only necessary moments of recreation, but also political statements.

In his 1938 essay entitled Homo Ludens, the Johan Huizinga stated that play precedes culture and not the other way around. Using cross-cultural examples from different disciplines and walks of life, the Dutch historian goes on to say that games do indeed contribute to the formation of culture and emphasizes the importance of games’ intangible values. He claims that indeed “human civilization evolves and emerges in the act of playing as a game”. From this starting point, the exhibition aims to bring back the ancestral value of play, proposing new solutions with an innovative and contemporary twist.

Looking back at Huizinga’s text, Roger Caillois sees the playful sphere as a mirror of the social and cultural development of a given community. The French intellectual also reiterates the free nature of playful activities: although they are all generally characterized by rules and conventions that determine and govern their effective functioning, there is no game without the players’ freedom to participate or less. This notion of freedom was also present in Huizinga’s essay, which identified freedom or “actual freedom” as the salient feature of the play.

Based on these literary references and also by Friedrich Nietzsche and Friedrich Schiller, among others Non-Playable Characters proposes a newfound approach to gaming that looks back to the age-old, anti-transactional power of gaming, but then returns it to our contemporary context, marked by the constant deconstruction of and play with myth, structure, trauma, and power-categories .

The Venice School of Curatorial Studies is an ambitious and challenging project that started its activity in 2004. It sees itself as a school dedicated to experimentation and interdisciplinary thinking. The main objectives are the dissemination of knowledge in the field of fine arts and the introduction of students to the professions of the art world with an emphasis on contemporary curatorial theory and practice and contemporary museology. The staff consists of international professionals, scholars, historians and art critics with recognized experience, spreading knowledge in the field of fine arts and professions related to contemporary art. The training offer consists of two main courses each year: one in Italian, which lasts one school year, and an international format that takes place during the summer months. The School for Curatorial Studies Venice was founded by Aurora Fonda and Sandro Pignotti. Non-playable character is conceived by the students: Asia Barbiero, Oluwatobi Monica Benzing, Laura Cagnin, Giulia Del Gobbo, Agnese Dell’Omo, Federico Gemelli, Eleonora Ghedini, Alessia Imprescia, Gaia Lazzerini, Beatrice Levorato, Angelica Littamè, Rebecca Manzoni, Greta Mellere, Ylenia Modolo, Marta Omodei, Ileana Rutigliano, Sara Sandrucci, Maria Chiara Terracciano, Rubens Tola, Alessandra Maria Venditti, Benedetta Zannoni and Giorgia Zenerola.

The most beautiful is a new platform for artists that supports gallery and medium-independent access to the art market and offers the opportunity to discover oneself with curated group exhibitions in a fair environment. Taking a fluid approach to formats and exchanges, The Fairest organizes smaller teaser versions of their main fair, which will take place for the first time during Berlin Art Week in September 2022. In each teaser, a new selection of artists will be presented, who will continue to be positioned in the main fair. The Fairest is an innovative platform whose mission is to build a growing manifesto based on research values, relevant content and a sustainable market.

The public secondary school of the first class “Pier Fortunato Calvi”. is an ideal place to support a local reality whose existence is in danger of disappearing due to the rapid decline in population on Venetian territory. The Institute’s collaboration with the School for Curatorial Studies (which began in 2019) is therefore linked to the desire to enhance the urban context in which both are located and to place them alongside important local and international realities.

NON-PLAYABLE CHARACTER [The Fairest – Teaser 04]April 19-30, 2022

Curated by the School for Curatorial Studies Venice and The Fairest

Location: State Secondary School, first grade “Pier Fortunato Calvi”, Castello – 1808 Via Garibaldi, Venice

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Irene Machetti

I’m a freelance journalist who has been working with FAD for over 2 years. I recently started the FOOD ART column, in which I interview artists and thinkers working on food-related issues. I have an increasing interest in contemporary art, particularly ceramics, photography and performance art, which I specialize in at the Courtauld Institute of Art.