Une proposition pour l’articulation d’oeuvres et de lieux. Partie 2, project for an exhibition curated by Abdellah Karroum, was set up in Palazzo Riso last summer and brought together an ensemble of works formerly installed at the AiM Biennale Festival of Marrakesh, 2009. Moving the exhibition from Marrakesh to Palermo was not just a physical transportation, but a matter of translating meanings, an act of authorship by means of the artists’choices.
Palermo became the site for setting the artworks in a new context by reactivating them within new locations, history and cultural milieu. A Proposal for articulating Works and Places aimed at creating a possible dialogue between buildings and works.
Actually, rather than a simple "spacial arrangement" in a venue which was different from the original one, it was a matter of thinking the art pieces as something anew, once set in Palazzo Riso and in the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Complesso Monumentale Sant’Anna.
As a matter of fact, these two places are to be considered as artworks themselves while representing the "genius loci" of Palermo, both through their symbolic role in the city and that of their permanent collections.
Also through exploring different media -paintings, audio/video works, visual installations - the artworks question a possible new relationship between their original production context and that of their presentation in Sicily.
I consider the time of creation of an artwork generally longer than that of its exhibition.

A proposal for articulating Works and Places, Part 2 is not based on a theory of "ended" art objects: some of them are still under construction, Mustapha Akrim’s for example, some others are still in progress as part of large scale projects -James Webb’s, Kathryn Smith’s, Heidi Nikolaisen’s- along with those standing as documentation of past activities (Yto Barrada’s and Younès Ramhoun’s). In Works and Places, documentation plays an important role of re-enactement and constant transmission of these artworks, that actually end up being part of Palazzo Riso while sharing its issues and those of contemporary Sicily.
Mustapha Akrim’s “Chantier” stands as a good example of what’s just been said.
Set and framed in the Museum’s courtyard, it sort of “tells its own story”, while interacting, as a still life, with the real construction: its tools are symbols of social activism and of social stillness as well.

It is more important to define the place of art and to understand its intrigues than it is to list its images or actors.
For its second set up in Palermo, this experimental "proposal" aims at reactivating the artworks in the specificity of a museum while keeping them active out of its borders. Yto Barrada’s Palm projec” works as an example of this specific approach. Its references are adamant.  Its expressive possibilities as an artwork, though, go beyond the former site of its creation (Morocco).  Therefore, the political issue of this work as well as its critical approach to the "establishment", live together with this new context of reactivation.
When preserving memories of artworks, though, a Museum must provide a place for meeting using art as a tool for analysing realities. Francis Alys’ work, Don’t cross the bridge before you get to the river, 2009, takes here the shape of postcards spread out across the city. Using the image of two lines of kids with shoe boats meeting at the horizon between Africa and Europe, it talks us about the “possibilities” for a North-South dialogue in a borderless freedom of movement.
In the same way the multiple video installation, WESTERN UNION: small boats, 2009, by Isaac Julien, tells the journeys of immigrants and their stories on the way to the coasts of Sicily.
The artist’s visions, full of contradictions, foster reflections about the past and present history of Palermo and its inhabitants.
A transnational dialogue seems to be a key-word for understanding the works presented here. All of them look at the World in a very alerted way speaking about its socio-political conditions and changes. In fact, each work shows personal visions of reality from specific points of view: the kitchen as for Batoul S’Himi in her World’s Pressure, then the room of an imaginary writer as for Tomas Colaço’s Pension Palace- Room 11, as well as Younes Rahmoun’s Ghorfa, reconstructed space for work and meditation in the Rif Mountains. Art is surely about dialogue and no borders exist to the artistic expression.
Vis-à-vis, the new work by Faouzi Laatiris, consists of two sculptural elements, the front and the back side of a mirror. A dialogue exists between them standing on the walls, face to face. A physical cut operated by the artist on one side of the object enables us to perceive the missing part as another reality which is not anymore part of the work.
This can be considered as the evidence of the fact that many possible realities are contemplated and connected.