Thematic sites - Municipality of Milan

BRERA ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS for REMEMBRANCE DAY 2023
«MUSELMANN»
EXHIBITION - INSTALLATION IN COLLABORATION WITH THE SHOAH MEMORIAL OF MILAN AND THE CHILDREN OF THE SHOAH ASSOCIATION

Starting from the positive response to the first edition of the exhibition and installation «Muselmann. Homage to Aldo Carpi" - curated in 2021 by professor Barbara Nahmad and with the collaboration of professor Stefano Pizzi - the Brera Academy of Fine Arts proposes for the Remembrance Day 2023 an expanded edition of the same initiative, with new presences of artists and their students.
The spirit that will unite the two editions will be the same as the initial exhibition held at the Shoah Memorial in Milan (thanks to the collaboration of the Sons of the Shoah Association). This year the exhibition - installation will take place in three different spaces: the Shoah Memorial, the recently inaugurated new library of the CDEC - Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center and the former Church of San Carpoforo.
The underlying theme is the homage to Aldo Carpi, a professor of painting at Brera who, due to the denunciation of a colleague, was arrested in January 1944 and then deported first to the Mauthausen concentration camp and then to the Gusen extermination camp, from which miraculously he survived, leaving at the end of the conflict and taking with him the important Gusen Diary, one of the very few artistic testimonies (written and drawn) on the reality of the camps. Precisely from these pages, we derived the concept of the "muselmann", a word which in Lagerszpracha jargon indicated prisoners in the pre-agony phase.
For Remembrance Day 2023 the Brera Academy wanted to once again tackle these difficult and dramatic issues by involving, alongside previous contributions, new artists and professors and some of their best students. The result was a modular collective installation of black and white papers and drawings, in an ideal wall mosaic which with different languages ​​delves into the tragic figure of the "muselmann" from which
According to Vittoria Coen, what emerges is "the capacity for synthesis and the precise, profound vision that goes well beyond the temporal distance of the historical period described".

The installation will be presented in the former church of San Carpoforo from 24 January to 1 February 2023 and from 2 February to 12 February 2023 at the Shoah Memorial and the CDEC library.
The best student works will be rewarded by a commission made up of the three institutions involved.
On February 1st at 12.00 a performance by Adrian Schvarzstein and Jūratė Širvytė-Rukštele entitled «Arrived» will be presented, focusing on a Jewish couple who took refuge in a basement during the Second World War and who, after almost eighty years, «arrives» in surreal ways in our world and in our present.

• Prof. Barbara Nahmad - Teacher of Painting Techniques and Technologies, Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan
• Prof. Stefano Pizzi - External Relations Office, Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan

PROGRAM
24 January 2023 12.00 hours
Inauguration of the exhibition-installation “Muselmann. Homage to Aldo Carpi”
With the presence of the President of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Livia Pomodoro and the President of the Shoah Memorial Foundation of Milan, Roberto Jarach
Former church of San Carpoforo, Via Formentini 12, Milan

1 February 2023 12.00 hours
Finissage of the exhibition with the performance “Arrived”
By and with Adrian Schvarzstein and Jūratė Širvytė-Rukštele
Brera Academy of Fine Arts via Brera 28, Milan
Poster

2 February - 12 February 2023
Exhibition - installation “Muselmann. Homage to Aldo Carpi”
Shoah memorial, Milan
Piazza Edmond Jacob Safra 1, Milan