BORDEAUX.- Evento 2011 will be held in Bordeaux from 6 to 16 October 2011. This year’s version of the city’s urban and artistic rendezvous is being orchestrated by Michelangelo Pistoletto, an emblematic figure in contemporary art. The twofold hub of his artistic project and intellectual approach involves art as a vehicle of social transformation, and a desire to turn Bordeaux into one huge experimental platform. The event will summon all manner of artistic expression to explore new perspectives in the economic, political, social and ecological fields. Michelangelo Pistoletto’s goal is to produce both with and in Bordeaux an alternative model for living better together, a novel linkage between cultures; and, through art, he aims to achieve an “urban re-evolution” for tomorrow’s cities.

Bordeaux is giving carte blanche to Michelangelo Pistoletto and the Cittadellarte.

After the success of Evento 2009, with its 390,000 visitors, the City of Bordeaux is carrying on its daring wager to give carte blanche to an exceptional artist by putting the second urban art meeting in the hands of Michelangelo Pistoletto. This major figure in contemporary art and the Arte Povera movement has also founded the Cittadellarte on the heights of Biella in Italy. This place represents the making of a utopia, to wit, a factory of projects and ideas aimed at ― « inspiring and producing a responsible transformation of society through creativity ».

“Art for an Urban Re-evolution”: three pivotal exhibitions, major events, and three novel sites.

The “Roots” Project
In order to embark on an urban re-evolution, it is necessary to cast an eye over historical, artistic and urban upheavals. This at once retrospective, contextual and forward-looking exploration is being carried out with three of the City’s museums: the Musée d’Aquitaine, the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, and arc en rêve centre d’architecture.

-William Kentridge (South Africa), a politically committed poet and artist, will have pride of place in the Musée d’Aquitaine in an exhibition reflecting the history of Bordeaux and its region.

-The Van Abbemuseum at Eindhoven (Netherlands) and its director Charles Esche will be invited by the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux to devise an exhibition about the link between art and politics in the 20th century, and their influence on today’s participatory and engaged art.

-The Stealth.Unlimited collective (Serbia and Netherlands), together with arc en rêve centre d’architecture will take an innovative look at the past and present-day utopias in Bordeaux’s urban development.

The Major Events
In inviting every kind of public to take part in a series of artistic events, concerts, installations, and theatrical and musical performances will all be intermingled with meetings and discussions organized by current figures in literature, urbanism, economics and politics. Among the artists who will be present, Wolfgang Mitterer (Austria) will conduct a concert with 500 musicians in a public place, Pascale Marthine Tayou (Cameroon) will organize a large theme-based parade, and Claudia Castellucci – Societas Raffaello Sanzio (Italy) will run a school of dance and performance.

Opening the “sites” in the second quarter of 2011
This new way of looking at the city will be expressed through original artistic interventions in the public place, addressing everyone, and all kinds of public (amateur, children, initiated...), who will themselves be involved in the creative process.

To inspire this exchange between artists and citizens to construct shared projects, local and international artists will be at work in the Bordeaux area as from the second quarter of 2011, setting up sites, otherwise put, nothing less than laboratories of open and shared artistic creation, which will also pay host to temporary events and installations. The artists Marjetica Potrč (Slovenia), Jeanne van Heeswijk (Netherlands), Teddy Cruz (United States) and Nils Norman (Great Britain) will duly make use of residential neighborhoods and emblematic places to turn the urban area into a huge experimental terrain, and come up with proposals for producing an urban re-evolution.

Their thinking will focus in particular on:
-sustainability, with art thus being an inspiring language for urban ecology,
-diversity, with art permitting comparisons between the city’s cultural, political and social differences,
-proximity, with art stimulating the hands-on creation of a new economy that is self-managed, territorial and ethical.

A demanding, generous event, open to the world
Evento 2011 is a multi-disciplinary meeting encouraging conviviality and sharing; as in 2009, it is free, and open to one and all. Its demanding artistic spirit and its international scope will enable all kinds of public to go beyond the event per se, and develop, experience and prolong a novel form of urban re-evolution.

« Art is the most perceptible and the most synthetic expression of thought: the time has come for the artist to assume his responsibility and create links between human activities, from economics to politics, from science to religion, and from education to behaviour—in a nutshell, every area of the social factory » (M. Pistoletto, Manifesto Progetto Arte).