SHORT CUT
The Nicola Trussardi Foundation presents SHORT CUT, a project by Michael Elmgreen
& Ingar Dragset. In the month of May (from May 7th) the Ottagono of the Galleria
Vittorio Emanuele in Milan will become a new stage for contemporary art.
Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset (1961, Copenhagen, Denmark / 1969, Trondheim,
Norway) – after creating installations in some of the most interesting institutions
in Europe and the United States – have designed a unique work for Milan
that questions both the city’s daily life and its history. SHORT CUT penetrates
one of Milan’s monumental symbols, drawing new trajectories to explore our
urban space.
The Ottagono of the Gallleria Vittorio Emanuele is the entrance door to the historic
center of Milan. Built in 1861, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele is a triumph of
glass and steel, boutiques and cafes. Admired and painted by the futurists, the
Galleria has always been a crucial center in Milan’s cultural life. From
the composers and singers of the nearby Opera House who enlivened its cafes and
restaurants at the beginning of the 20th century, to the storms of tourists who
stroll to the cathedral today, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele has configured itself
as a giant covered square - a microcosm of Milan’s urban life and contrasts.
For this scenario, Elmgreen and Dragset have conceived a new, original installation:
after an imaginary trip through the center of the world, a white car and its caravan
have appeared at the center of the Galleria, cracking the floor and destroying
its precious marbles. Elmgreen & Dragset’s installation, titled SHORT
CUT, stands as a metaphor for global tourism while it paves a way to uncommon
destinations. SHORT CUT is a perfect game of high-definition illusionism: it redraws
the perception of public architecture, opening its space to new interpretations
and encounters. And yet, SHORT CUT is also an image of struggle and sudden confrontation,
which produces new friction between the shining beauty of monuments and the immediate
roughness of everyday life. Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset’s installation
reverberates with images of surrender and protest; it undermines the solemnity
of monuments with the primal energy of nomadism.
With this installation by Elmgreen & Dragset, discover a secret passage through
the history of Milan, while also mapping a new path across its present.
SHORT CUT is the first contemporary art exhibition organized by the renewed Nicola
Trussardi Foundation. With this show, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, the Nicola
Trussardi Foundation leaves its former exhibition space and uses the imaginary
landscape of art and culture to create a dialogue with the city of Milan.
Michael Elmgeen & Ingar Dragset live and work in Berlin, and have been working
together since 1995. They have taken part in some of the most important international
art exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, such as those at the
Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Zurich Kunsthalle and
the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, in Copenhagen. Selected for the 2000 Guggenheim
Museum Hugo Boss Prize, they exhibited at the 25th Sao Paulo Biennial, at the
Palais de Tokyo in Paris, at the seventh Istanbul Biennial, at the Rooseum in
Malmö and at Portikus, in Frankfurt. In 2003, they have already presented
their work at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, in New York, and have been selected
to take part at the Utopia Station section at the upcoming Venice Biennale. Their
work is in the permanent collection of several museums in Europe, such as the
Louisiana Museum for Modern Art, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Konstmuseum
in Malmö, the Hamburger Bahnhof and the CGAC in Santiago de Compostela.
