Mille Nanni – Tribute to Nanni Balestrini

1-3 july 2022 – Tribute to Nanni Balestrini
OPENING 1st JULY 6.30 p.m.
1st july – 30th october 2022

Casa Morra. Archivi d’Arte Contemporanea
Salita San Raffaele 20/c, Naples

A project by Andrea Cortellessa and Giuseppe Morra
Curated by Maria Teresa Carbone, Andrea Cortellessa and Ada Tosatti

Ma noi facciamone un’altra is the title of the second book of poetry by Nanni Balestrini (1935-2019), published in the iconic 1968. The title is a citation from one of Nanni’s main sources of inspiration, Bertolt Brecht. However, it also evokes Balestrini’s mercurial ability to move from one of the thousand facets of his polymorphous personality to another as artist, writer, political activist, and organizer of cultural events. Peppe Morra has dedicated one of the permanent exhibition spaces in Casa Morra to Balestrini, his friend, frequent guest, and accomplice and has established a memorial day dedicated to him in early July (2 July, Nanni’s birthday). The event will involve longstanding travelling companions and younger friends and collaborators whose tributes will take the form of poetic and musical performances, readings, interpretations, in-depth interdisciplinary discussions, and specialist seminars.

There really are a thousand ‘best’ Nannis in our lives, as Mille piani, published in 1980, shows. It was the summa of the works of Gilles Deleuze, the man whom Balestrini considered the greatest thinker of his time, as well as those of controversial psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, his friend and companion during his exile in France between 1979 and 1984 in the wake of a judicial hypothesis subsequently proved unfounded.In Balestrini we find the writer, pioneer in the 1960s of cybernetics-based combinatorial writing; there is also the visual artist who, decades later, would apply the same technique to images with his masterpiece Tristanoil, “the longest film in the world”. After showing at DOCUMENTA in 2012, it is now on permanent display at the Fondazione Morra. Then there is the narrator of Violenza illustrata, outlining the evils plaguing Italy in the seventies, as well as recounting our own times. We also have Nanni the cultural organizer, tireless inventor of movements, magazines, festivals, and editorial series. In addition, there is Balestrini the political activist who, from his Vogliamo tutto, painted an unflinching picture of our times.

Not a thousand, but dozens of poets, artists, essayists, and critics will be represented in turns at Casa Morra under the coordination of Maria Teresa Carbone, Andrea Cortellessa, and Ada Tosatti. Names will include Achille Bonito Oliva and Franco Berardi-Bifo, Maurizio Ferraris, Alessandra Carnaroli, and Carmen Gallo, Gabriele Frasca, Aldo Nove, and Lello Voce, Andrea Inglese, Tommaso Ottonieri, and Girolamo De Simone, the Luigi Cinque/Giovanni Fontana duo, and performance quartet Fumofonico, led by Rosaria Lo Russo.

 

PROGRAMME

 

Friday, 1st July

6.30 p.m.

Inauguration Mille Nanni, a documentary exhibition curated by Giuseppe Morra. Speeches by Achille Bonito Oliva, Andrea Cortellessa, Gino Di Maggio.

Film Il Suono di un’Isola by Uliano Paolozzi Balestrini, produced by Almendra Music.

7.30 p.m.

Gian Maria Annovi and Vittorio Pellegrineschi introduce Tristanoil.

8.30 p.m.

Readings by Gian Maria Annovi, Alessandra Carnaroli, Carmen Gallo, Marco Giovenale & Michele Zaffarano, and Aldo Nove. Followed by the performance Tristano per Nanni, music and piano by Girolamo De Simone.

 

Saturday, 2nd July

10.00 a.m.

Presentation of the Sonora project of the University of Naples «Federico II» with the participation of Giancarlo Alfano, Giuseppe Andrea Liberti, Valentina Panarella, and Stefania Zuliani.

12.00 p.m.
Piano performance by Andrea Riccio, music by Cage, Cilio, Eno, Pärt.

7.00 p.m.

Discussion starting from Nanni Balestrini millepiani (curated by Sergio Bianchi, DeriveApprodi 2022) led by Gian Paolo Renello with the participation of Franco Berardi Bifo, Giairo Daghini, Maurizio Ferraris, Renato Parascandolo, and Franca Rovigatti.

8.30 p.m.

Readings by Andrea Inglese, Eugenio Lucrezi, Giovanna Marmo, and Franca Rovigatti; performance Questioni di tagli. Così come si agisce in concreto. Tessiture di suoni e voci per Nanni by Luigi Cinque and Giovanni Fontana.

Sunday, 3rd July

7.00 p.m.

Discussion starting from Nanni Balestrini millepiani led by Ada Tosatti with the participation of Cecilia Bello Minciacchi, Tommaso Ottonieri, Emanuela Patti, Chiara Portesine, and Gian Paolo Renello.

8.30 p.m.

Readings by Mariano Bàino, Biagio Cepollaro, Laura Cingolani and Fabio Lapiana, Gabriele Frasca, Tommaso Ottonieri, Lello Voce; reading performance L’esplosione on Balestrini’s texts by Fumofonico (Rosaria Lo Russo with Fausto Berti, Matteo Zoppi, music by Michael Nannini).

Greetings and thanks by Rossana Campo.