IL MUSEO DEI MUSEI


THE MUSEUM OF MUSEUMS
© GIOVANNI BAI/MUSEO TEO 2012
4’22”

                                                                           
 
SYNOPSIS. The video THE MUSEUM OF MUSEUMS tries to explain the operating guidelines of the work of Museo Teo.   Museo Teo is a noprofit organisation for the diffusion of contemporary art, a museum with no permanent establishment and no works: not an imaginary museum, but a museum that materializes itself by organizing events - usually one-day long – in unusual and always different locations or on the edge of the traditional circuits, in order to bring art back to a really democratic and daily dimension.
The video  is also a a creative portrait of museums (as Tate Modern, London;  MACBA Barcelona; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Biennale, Venice and many other ), artists (as Joseph Kosuth), critics (as Federico Zeri or Gillo Dorfles) and artworks (of Lucio Fontana or Pipilotti Rist), and an ironic selfportrait of the author.

MUSEO TEO THE MUSEUM OF MUSEUMS
“Museo Teo gathers the collective work of many artists as a huge permanently evolving artwork, which includes in itself a thought about the state of art and in the meanwhile is  a playful place for fun and irony. A museum with no permanent establishment and no works, which  stages events - usually one-day long – in unusual and always different locations or on the edge of the traditional circuits, in order to bring art back to a really democratic and daily dimension”.
Several themes are recurring because they are the nodes from which our courses of action unravel, which have been redefined in the latest years: reclaiming the territory, education to image, art and the respect  for the artistic heritage as shared values, and mostly the need to create a network of creative relations in order to develop sociality and the production of sense and beauty as well.
Twenty years ago we moved from Perec’s concept in La vie mode d’emploi, by which even nothingness can have its identity, if it holds traces of its own history (“Maintenant, dans le petit salon, il reste ce qui reste quand il ne reste rien”); we went across places and non-places, we explored both traditional and hyper-modern Japan and we hoisted the flag of peace on the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima; we tried to dig into the world’s totality with a different look onto the threshold between the daily and the unknown, beyond which everything is possible, using Stephen Hawking’s statement as a metaphoric flag: “There is a universe where the moon is made of cheese and where Elvis is alive. Ours is only one of the possible kinds of universe”.
In the editorial of issue four we stated: “We are nomads, vagabonds and travellers of the imaginary; we always bring with us something to amuse ourselves and something to think about” and on issue five: “Artificial intelligence? Intelligence would be enough for us. The normal, average one.” And many times we had to appeal to that simple proposition, in the process of our work with the Hip-Hop shaman’s spirit which Lea Vergine ascribes to us, “roaming allegory, innocent and sulphur conscience of the art world, embarrassing presence for old and new mandarins”.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: AGNESE VENERONI, ALFREDO JAAR, ALICE CHAMPOLLION*, ANDY FLUON*, ANDY WARHOL, ANTHONY HOPKINS, BIANCA TOSATTI, BJÖRK, CAROLINA GOZZINI, CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI, DOUGLAS GORDON, E IL TOPO REBIRTH, ELVIS PRESLEY, FABIO MAURI, FEDERICO ZERI, GAETANO LIGUORI*, GAK SATO*, GELITIN*, GILLO DORFLES, GIORGIO MORANDI, JAMES TURRELL, JEPPE HEIN, JONATHAN DEMME, JOSEPH BEUYS, JOESPH KOSUTH,
LAMONTE YOUNG, LO ZOCCOLO DURO*, LUCIO FONTANA, MANUEL D’ONOFRIO/2CM*, MARINA ABRAMOVIC, MARIO DAJELLI, MARIO GORNI/CAREOF, MARIO TEDESCHI, NICOLETTA MERONI, OLIVER STONE, ORSON WELLES, PATTI SMITH,
PIPILOTTI RIST, PAE WHITE, REBECCA HORN, ROY LICHTENSTEIN, STEPHEN HAWKING, STEVE PICCOLO*, SUN YUAN + PENG YU, THE TEN YEARS AFTER, TONY OURSLER, WOODY ALLEN, YAYOI KUSAMA;  *[soundtrack/live music performance] BIENNALE VENEZIA, BMW GUGGENHEIM LAB BERLIN, CAIXA FORUM BARCELONA, CENTRE GEORGES POMPIDOU PARIS, ΕΘΝΙΚΟ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΛΟΓΙΚΟ ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟ ΑΘΗΝΑΣ, FONDAZIONE BEVILACQUA LA MASA VENEZIA, HAMBURGER BAHNHOF BERLIN, HAYWARD GALLERY LONDON, LAMBRETTO ART PROJECT MILANO, LIA RUMMA MILANO, MACBA BARCELONA, MAGA GALLARATE, MDAM MUSEO D’ARTE LUGANO, MUSEO DEL NOVECENTO MILANO, MUSEO TEO MILANO, MUSEUM FÜR KOMMUNIKATION BERLIN, NBGK BERLIN, NEUES MUSEUM BERLIN, PALAZZO DELLA RAGIONE BERGAMO, PALAZZO REALE MILANO, PAC MILANO, PIANO CITY MILANO, SAATCHI GALLERY LONDON, SUPPORTICO LOPEZ BERLIN, TATE MODERN LONDON, TRIENNALE MILANO.

*[soundtrack/live music performance]: ALICE CHAMPOLLION, Milano, 23.12.2011; ANDY FLUON, Milano, Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, 25.11.2011;  GAETANO LIGUORI, Milano,  Piano City, Caserma Magenta, 16.12.2011; GAK SATO e STEVE PICCOLO, Berlin, Supportico Lopez,  27.06.2012; GELITIN,  Biennale di Venezia,  Arsenale - Giardino delle Vergini, 31.05.2011; LO ZOCCOLO DURO, Milano, inContemporanea – La Triennale,  12.05.2007; MANUEL D’ONOFRIO/2CM, Milano,  Il museo dei musei, Lambretto Art Project , 17.09.2010.