Villa Reale, Galleria d’Arte Moderna. Internal view. Photo by Marco de Scalzi. Courtesy Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan

MILAN.- Fondazione Nicola Trussardi presents the first major exhibition in Italy of Tino Sehgal in the historical rooms of Villa Reale (Royal Villa), one of the most spectacular buildings in the heart of Milan.

With its salons decorated with neo-classical frescos and Imperial style furniture, Villa Reale is one of the city’s most unique examples of 19th century architecture and has been the house of many prominent figures throughout the history of the city of Milan. Napoleon himself lived in this building. Today Villa Reale hosts one the most important art collections in Italy with masterpieces by Antonio Canova, Andrea Appiani, Medardo Rosso and the iconic painting Il Quarto Stato (1901) by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, along with works by Cezanne, Morandi, the Futurists and many others.

The Fondazione Nicola Trussardi has invited the British born, German based artist Tino Sehgal to stage his choreographies and situations in the monumental spaces of the Villa. This exhibition brings together the most ambitious and complete selection of his oeuvre to date, including new pieces presented along with some of Sehgal’s most important works.

Tino Sehgal is one of the most radical artists of his generation. His work is an attempt to create an art without objects that only exists as a set of gestures and oral instructions carried out by trained interpreters for the entire duration of the exhibition. His work immerses the audience in uncanny situations and intricate choreographies executed by dancers, children, amateurish extras, museum guards and art world professionals. Tino Sehgal acts like the director of a complex role play, in which gestures and bodies are used to construct tableaux vivants of surreal beauty. A visit to a Tino Sehgal exhibition consists of a sequence of encounters with people knotted in sensual embraces and human sculptures wriggling on the floor as if caught in a hysteric frenzy. Other times Sehgal’s compositions function as scripted pieces of chamber theatre, in which viewers and actors are invited to exchange views, experiences and other forms of knowledge. Installed within the stucco and the golden framed mirrors of Villa Reale, Sehgal’s choreography take on a ghostly presence but can also be read as carefully rehearsed conversation pieces of a new rococo.

The works by Tino Sehgal in fact entertain a rich dialogue with history, while remaining firmly rooted in contemporary social practices and preoccupations. In This is new (2003) the toughest reality creeps into the museum through the main headlines of the daily newspaper. In Kiss (2002) two dancers move on the floor interpreting some of the most famous kisses in art history – from Antonio Canova to Egon Schiele and Jeff Koons. Installed in the Villa Reale, Kiss will exist side by side works by Canova and Medardo Rosso in a short circuit of histories. Instead of allowing some thing to rise up to your face dancing Bruce and Dan and other things (2000) is an anthology of poses inspired by fragments of videos by Bruce Nauman and Dan Graham, transformed into an hypnotic ballet. For This is so contemporary (2005), the museum guards intone a joyful anthem and dance around like puppets of a new theatre of the absurd.

Joyful as a celebration and repetitive as a mysterious ritual, Sehgal’s work is also a reflection on the value and the space of art. His work only exists as an oral tradition, a legend, a story that cannot be photographed or illustrated: no documentation or reproduction of his work is allowed, in order to focus all the attention on the physical evidence of his work and on its mythical resonance. Tino Sehgal’s peculiar form of sculpture betrays an ascetic, ecological tension, as it tries to exist in the world without leaving any trace.

With this exhibition the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi invites the public to spend time among the living works of art conceived by Tino Sehgal for the historic architecture, the collections and the luxurious decorations of the Villa Reale. This exhibition is the first and only contemporary art event to take place in the rooms of Villa Reale: it marks a unique opportunity to rediscover this building as it is transformed by the energy of contemporary art. After the retrospective by Peter Fischli & David Weiss installed in the magnificent spaces of Palazzo Litta, the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi continues its commitment to produce works by today’s most interesting artists for the forgotten monuments of the city of Milan.

Villa Reale, Galleria d’Arte Moderna. External view. Photo by Marco de Scalzi. Courtesy Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan