Magic Electric Bus
Magic Electric Bus
Art, Literature, and Open air. The electric bus to Castello di Rivoli
A program of Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in collaboration with IVECO BUS, Arriva, and Enel X, Libreria Internazionale Luxemburg, Turin, with the support of Faust, Turin
Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea presents Magic Electric Bus, a proposal by Gianluigi Ricuperati. The project is coordinated by Roberta Aghemo, with the curatorial assistance of Giulia Colletti.
From September to December 2021, once a month, an arts program will take place on board an electric shuttle, during the journey of approximately 40 minutes from Turin to Rivoli. For the occasion, IVECO BUS will supply an IVECO E-WAY Full Electric, a completely green vehicle with the latest generation of safety and power system. Decorated by artist Claudia Comte, the Magic Electric Bus connects Turin to Rivoli and welcomes personalities and artists, who will present special contents to the participating public.
The first journey will take place on Saturday September 25 with two guests from Turin: the novelist Gianluigi Ricuperati and the artist Ramona Ponzini, who will present a site-specific soundtrack. In addition, the well-known critic Achille Bonito Oliva, whose retrospective is currently on display in the galleries on the second floor of the Museum, and the artist Otobong Nkanga, protagonist of the new solo exhibition at Castello di Rivoli, will also take part in the maiden voyage. Also participating will be the writer Valentina Maini and the writer Stephanie LaCava, the latter connected remotely. On the bus, Castello di Rivoli Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev will introduce and moderate the program.
Magic Electric Bus intends to create a dialogue between literature, art, and Museum exhibitions. Each journey will involve an author and an artist on the bus and also writers connected remotely.
As for the project Glass-nost – organized by Castello di Rivoli in 2020, Magic Electric Bus takes its cue from the notion of transparency. The windows of the shuttle are an element that divides but at the same time offers an unexpected reading of the city of Turin and connection between art and life.
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Director of the Castello di Rivoli, states “In 1967 the Beatles released Magical Mystery Tour. Fifty years later, at the crossroads of the ecological crisis and the digital revolution, Castello di Rivoli presents Magic Electric Bus, a program in collaboration with IVECO BUS, Arriva, and Enel X. Once a month, the public will be able to hop on an electric bus from Turin to Rivoli, and live an artistic and magical experience.”
“An invitation to travel / to that country resembling you. With these words, Baudelaire reminds us that movement is a fundamental condition of living creatures that avoid being still. Covering the distance between Turin and Rivoli, our Magic Bus fosters a dialogue between authors, artists, and arts professionals. As a narrator and writer, who loves to dialogue with artists and representatives of other fields,” states Gianluigi Ricuperati, “I cannot imagine any more suitable condition than an electric bus to invoke the necessary alliance of places that look so much alike.”
On Saturday September 25, participants will meet at 1.45 pm at the Libreria Internazionale Luxemburg, Via Cesare Battisti 7 in Turin, and continue on foot towards Piazza Castello where the shuttle will depart.
To join the ride, please purchase your ticket (€ 15) on www.castellodirivoli.org
Guest authors of the following journeys include Marco Belpoliti, Igiaba Scego, Chiara Valerio, amongst others. Guest artists and arts professionals include Guglielmo Castelli, Marzia Migliora and Agnieszka Kurant, amongst others.
Calendar
Saturday September 25, 2021
Achille Bonito Oliva, Stephanie LaCava, Valentina Maini, Otobong Nkanga, Ramona Ponzini and Gianluigi Ricuperati
1.45 pm meeting at Libreria Internazionale Luxemburg
2 pm departure from Piazza Castello, Turin
3 pm arrival at Castello di Rivoli
3.30 pm Public Program Achille Bonito Oliva
4 pm Performance Anne Imhof
7 pm departure from Castello di Rivoli to Piazza Castello, Turin
7.45 pm arrival in Turin
Saturay October 23, 2021
1.30 pm meeting at Libreria Internazionale Luxemburg
2 pm departure from Piazza Castello, Turin
6 pm departure from Castello di Rivoli to Piazza Castello, Turin
6.45 pm arrival in Turin
Saturday November 6, 2021
1.30 pm meeting at Libreria Internazionale Luxemburg
2 pm departure from Piazza Castello, Turin
6 pm departure from Castello di Rivoli to Piazza Castello, Turin
6.45 pm arrival in Turin
Saturay December 11, 2021
1.30 pm meeting at Libreria Internazionale Luxemburg
2 pm departure from Piazza Castello, Turin
6 pm departure from Castello di Rivoli to Piazza Castello, Turin
6.45 pm arrival in Turin
In collaboration with
In collaboration with 
With further collaboration of 
Biographies
Achille Bonito Oliva (Caggiano, 1939) is one of the most important art critics and curators of the 20th and 21st centuries. Bonito Oliva has contributed to defining radical artistic research lines such as, at the end of the seventies, those related to the Italian Transavanguardia. His A.B.O. THEATRON. The Art or Life exhibition is currently on display in the galleries on the second floor of Castello di Rivoli (until January 9, 2022).
Stephanie LaCava (New York, NY, 1985) is a writer who began her career at American Vogue and has since appeared in ‘The Believer’, ‘The New York Review of Books’, ‘Harper’s Magazine’, ‘Texte zur Kunst’ and ‘The New Inquiry’.
Valentina Maini (Bologna, 1987) has published short stories in ‘retabloid’, ‘TerraNullius’, ‘Atti Impuri’, ‘Horizonte’ and other magazines. Some of her articles have appeared in ‘Poetics’, ‘La Deleuziana’, the ‘Classiques Garnier’. With the collection of poems Casa rotta, (2016) she won the Anna Osti literary prize.
Otobong Nkanga (Kano, Nigeria, 1974) is an artist who creates works that explore the natural traces and the social, cultural and environmental dimension of the human being, always seen as a complex network of relations with the territory. Her works are present in the collections of numerous international institutions including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli – Torino. Nkanga has participated in many exhibitions and biennials around the world. Her new solo exhibition at Castello di Rivoli is part of the collaboration project with the Centre d’art contemporain of Villa Arson, Nice, which recently presented her first retrospective in France.
Ramona Ponzini (Piacenza, 1979) lives and works in Turin. Her practice combines visual art and literature, with noise and jazz impromptu experimentation. Ponzini follows a purely conceptual matrix, crossing the idea of “editing” and “sampling” of elements encoded and reprocessed through the use of loop machines.
Gianluigi Ricuperati (Turin, 1977) is a writer. He has been director of Domus Academy for five years and interdisciplinary curator of the cultural program of MIA Fair since 2015. His essays, reportages, and novels have been published by Rizzoli, Bollati Boringhieri, Minimum Fax, Mondadori, Feltrinelli, and Gallimard. He collaborates with Italian and international magazines, newspapers such as ‘Volume’, ‘Domus’, ‘Abitare’, ‘Vogue’, ‘Dazed & Confused’, ‘La Repubblica’, ‘Il Sole 24 Ore’, ‘Flash Art’ and ‘032c’. He is the founder of Faust, the first center for the resurrection of books and aggregator of creative communities in Turin.