A.B.O. THEATRON L’ARTE O LA VITA – ART OR LIFE

Exhibition and catalog drafted by Achille Bonito Oliva, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

Curatorial coordinator: Andrea Viliani

In the late 1970s, Achille Bonito Oliva overturned the avant-garde conceptual art system (which he described as “puritan”) by introducing Transavantgarde, the fourth Italian art movement after Futurism, Metaphysical Art and Arte Povera, which established itself internationally in the twentieth century. He is also one of the few who have managed to combine serious theoretical andcuratorial research with an ironic, grandstanding presence in the mass media and television in particular, always conveying a sense of duty toward the popularization of art.Through the presentation of archive materials and a discerning selection of works related to some of his most significant exhibitions and thematic projects from 1970 to 2019 (also including works from the Castello di Rivoli collection), A.B.O. THEATRON. Art or Life reveals Bonito Oliva’s importance in the emancipation of the curator’s role in the field of contemporary art. The exhibitionoffers a multifaceted portrait of a particularly proactive and expressive intellectual, who overcame the limitations of academic structures and redefined the fields and tools of curatorial investigation,becoming a pivotal figure in the history of art of the twentieth and twenty-first century.