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James Bradburne
Franziska Nori
Lorenzo Giusti
Valentina Gensini
John Thackara
Gunter Pauli
Marjetica Potrc
Hans Drexler
Franco La Cecla
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The Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina
James M. Bradburne |
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The mission of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi is to revitalise the public spaces of Palazzo, one of Florence’s finest examples of Renaissance architecture, and to establish it as an exciting, dynamic and international cultural destination for visitors of all ages and interests. Already the exhibitions held in the Palazzo’s grand spaces on the first floor have attracted international attention. The Palazzo’s courtyard now hosts a café, a museum shop and a permanent exhibition on the history of the Palazzo, as well as a varied programme of concerts, fashion shows and performances. From the outset, a key part of the Palazzo Strozzi project was to create a centre for contemporary culture at the very heart of Florence, and the Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina (CCCS) was created as platform for the different approaches and practices that characterise the production of contemporary art and culture.
The centre is located in the beautifully restored spaces under the courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi – known as ‘La Strozzina’ – and hosted Florence’s most important international exhibitions in the years after the Second World War until the flood of 1966. The CCCS comprises twelve rooms of different sizes, approx. 850 square metres in total. The absence of natural light enables individual curators to interpret the space in new and exciting ways and makes it possible to reshape the entire environment in accordance with the requirements of each new project. The challenge posed by the Renaissance architecture of Palazzo Strozzi for contemporary art is a stimulus to treat each new event and project almost as theatre, constantly pursuing new possibilities of artistic communication, presentation and mediation.
The current exhibition tackles issues at the very heart of contemporary culture – the environment, ecology and sustainability. As museum expert Robert Janes writes in his book Museums for a Troubled World (Routledge 2009) ‘It is common knowledge that the planet earth and global civilization now confront a constellation of issues that threatens the very existence of both. These issues range from climate change, to the inevitability of depleted fossil fuels, not to mention the bewildering array of local concerns pertaining to the health and well-being of myriad communities the world over. […] Surprisingly, museums are rarely, if ever, discussed, causing me to conclude that the irrelevance of museums as social institutions is a matter of record. Our persistent denial obviously has some short-term adaptive value, but such denial is now assaulting our collective future.’
Green Platform is an example of how cultural institutions can recognise, explore and confront the environmental issues facing us all. Green Platform creates a forum for debate and discussion, and shows works by contemporary artists including Alterazioni Video, Amy Balkin, Andrea Caretto and Raffaella Spagna, Michele Dantini, Ettore Favini, Futurefarmers, Tue Greenfort, Henrik Håkansson, Katie Holten, Dave Hullfish Bailey, Christiane Löhr, Dacia Manto, Lucy + Jorge Orta, Julian Rosefeldt, Carlotta Ruggieri, Superflex, Nicola Toffolini and Nikola Uzunovski. It is not clear what role artists and art can play in addressing the challenges we will face in the coming decades. What is sure, however, is that the issues explored by Green Platform are ones that deserve our careful and critical attention.
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