Alessandro Stillo

The 12th Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean celebrated its twentieth anniversary in Naples. The 1st edition was in 1985, with its debut in Barcelona, following "Tendencias - Prologue to the Biennial" in 1984. Barcelona would also host the 3rd edition in 1987.
Despite the title "Biennial," the first four editions of this joint event were annual and moved from Barcelona to Thessaloniki in 1986, returned to Barcelona in 1987 then back to Bologna in 1988.
Finally, it began to conform to its name with Marseilles in 1990, Valencia 1992, and Lisbon 1994.
Another move to Turin in 1997 was followed by Rome in 1999, Sarajevo in 2001, Athens in 2003 and Naples in 2005.
Since 1985, the world has undergone profound change and the Biennial has absorbed these transformations with difficulty, but also with dexterity while maneuvering between conflict and multiplying tensions. Embracing new frontiers, countries, visas, technical and technological needs while trying to flow with the times, adapting to change without losing its peculiar and essential characteristics.
Today, the Biennial of Young Artists is much better known than it was twenty years ago, because now, every city, region, country has its own Biennial. But what exactly is the Biennial of Young Artists? It is an event which, every two years, gathers the best work of young artists under thirty produced around the "Mare Nostrum." At the same time, it is a great happening, a grand meeting of young men and women. The young participants are all housed together in the host city and this creates a connection between them and the city, a tide which can't be held back, a sea of interweaving contacts, situations, artistic and personal histories that the participants carry with them for years and which is acknowledged as the characteristic value of the Biennial event.
So far so clear, though heavy going, especially the organization. A traveling youth art happeningthat has been evolving for twenty years which is complex just to imagine but inviting young artists from Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia, and putting them together with artists from Kosovo and Albania, Greece and Macedonia, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, just to name a few of the twenty-eight countries taking part in the Biennial, then providing them with the opportunity to meet, discuss, play music, exhibit, perform their own works in the same venues is a fundamental experience which we can recommend to everyone.
This is the key reason for the success of the event, but its longevity still remains unexplained. One gets the impression of being confronted by a living thing, a collective organism "with a life of its own."
The permanence of the Biennial is the product of a collective effort made by dozens of cultural operators, both from public and private non-profit organizations, who promote, stimulate, and select creative youth from all around the Mediterranean and punctually present it to the public during every edition of the event.
Over the years, we have worked on linking cultural operators with artists, enthusiasts and anyone interested in art and culture.
This network of local bodies, ministries, associations and cultural institutions from the Mediterranean, created as organizational support for the event, has became, over the years, a permanent instrument and a "meeting place" for different realities. Realities united by the mission of creating new opportunities for young artists, and becoming an international association that today, six years after its foundation, has more than seventy members in twenty Mediterranean countries.
To this we must add all of the various partners and contacts around the Mediterranean coast, which have gradually built to more than 700 artists in each event and around 10,000 participants in the Biennial over the last twenty years.
The working relationship between members and partners of the association begins at home with each one networking in their local area, and presenting the results to the public every two years. This event is both a showcase and an excellent opportunity. At the same time, it is a combination of the sounds, gestures, languages and aspirations created by the young artists and the people working for and with them.
Since 1985, the Biennial has changed very little in terms of organization. It's a classic that always displays new elements in its artistic content, while following and often surpassing the technological, political, and cultural developments of the last twenty years.
What remains untouched is the energy, the positive tension produced by the thousands of events that are held during the Biennial. Every participant takes home a light but meaningful addition to their baggage, an indelible memory.
Dozens, perhaps hundreds of participants in the twelve editions of the Biennial are now famous in their own countries. Some of them are internationally renowned, and many more carry on their own creative activity, while developing their work to professional status. An even greater number are probably doing totally different things but, for everyone involved, the Biennial represents an important, unforgettable experience.
How did all this happen in an artistic event which started out simply to present the creativity of young people around the world? I believe that the many answers lie in its very name. The topos or sense of place of the event and our work. The Biennial began as an opportunity for Southern Europe, which then expanded into the whole "Mare Nostrum" basin. The aim was to compare and exhibit the product of a generation that, in the eighties, had no voice in the institutions, museums, galleries, and markets, but had a strong desire to use the languages of art as a means of expression and at the same time, as a professional goal.
The term "young artist" which is much abused, and the subject of speculation and controversy today, did not exist then or it was used to describe forty-year-old artists waiting for museum consecration. For the first time on our continent, dreams, ideas, desires, and the creations of younger generations were given real value and not seen as a problem. We began to sense the potential of a whole generation to add value to those means of expression and non-traditional professional ambitions which are not part of the conventional work environment.
A different way of looking at young people allowed us to discover their energy and their potential, and to begin to invest in the development of these possibilities. Beginning with their aspirations rather than their problems.
The interface that fed these ideas and turned them into good practice was the one between the Mediterranean cultural associations and local governments (municipal, regional and provincial). These were soon joined by institutions and governments at a national level.
I believe it was not by chance that the first and strongest boost of energy which helped get us here today came from these local communities.
In this sense, the Biennial represented a synthesis, which gave an international prospective, breathing life into this movida, into the artistic ferment and commitment that were spreading among the younger generations.
And here we come to the hidden heart of the Biennial and our work with young artists- the Mediterranean. Timidly at first, then in an increasingly determined, almost overwhelming way, loads of energy came into the Biennial from lesser known corners of this sea. From territories where conflicts had torn souls and bodies apart, like the Balkans for example. From areas where tensions are still unsolved, or rather, where they are one of the causes of instability in the contemporary world like the Middle East and the Maghreb.
The Mediterranean, cradle of the old world, has become what its name actually means. It serves as mediator, communicator and a trade route between the lands it bathes and between the people it nourishes.
These aspects have filled the Biennial with things that go beyond art.
Here are just a few memories which blossom again among the unforgettable thousands in twenty years of collective history, during which many of our lives were involved with the Biennial:
- "Tendencias," in Barcelona 1984, a youth center, the Casal del Transformador, Pazienza's shapes, the Italian boys and their fake Modiglianis carved with power tools;
- the first Biennial, 1985, in Barcelona, Litfiba on the Ramblas, the Casa de Caridad, a building, vacant for many years, that became an exhibition venue (today, it is the CCCB, Contemporary Culture Center of Barcelona), the historical premises of the city for the first time represented the core of a great public event (Zeleste, KGB, Bikini, the mythical Oto Zutz, the legendary fashion show in Plaza de Cataluña);
- Thessaloniki, a year later, the droves of university students from all over Greece, the Saracen Tower with the photography installations, the beautiful Royal Theatre, used after years of neglect, the Greek Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri, at the opening ceremony;
- back to Barcelona again in 1987. In those years the city suddenly became the juvenile center of the international movida, an unimaginable theme at that time: Creativity and the Market;
- Bologna, 1988, the first Biennial held in Italy, the Sala della Borsa overcrowded with young people, a wave of cold and a flu epidemic, the arguments and tensions within the punk community;
- Marseilles, 1990, the solar city, the central square, the Canebiere, with colorful crowds of artists;
- the movida of Valencia, two years later, in 1992, a changing city, where the works were distributed throughout the city and the organizers did not expect such agitation and ferment.
The moving performance of the Algerian artists who denounced an already serious situation in their country, and which worsened in the following years;
- a Lusitanian premiere, Lisbon, 1994, vast and beautiful spaces, Las Cordoerias, a factory of sheets and tow-ropes for the Portuguese navy that became the main exhibition center, the tram to Belem, the cherry liquor in the center of Lisbon, the first contact with Sarajevo, which was already proposing a Biennial in Bosnia-Herzegovina;
- Torino, 1997, apparently the least Mediterranean city of all, but striving successfully to prove the contrary: the Murazzi and the huge fry up of anchovies, the Biennial "Off" and "On," intermingled daily, the Cavallerizza (the old royal stables) used as an exhibition venue for the first time, and a permanent culture space today;
- once again a location fallen into disuse and reopened by the Biennial, the Slaughterhouse in Rome, in 1999, an enormous space abandoned for decades, then brought to life through artworks and young people, Maestro Antonioni and Harald Szeeman's long beard at the inauguration, the Sarajevo pavilion, more post-war than the Bosnian city itself, which was already waiting to host the following edition;
- Sarajevo 2001, the Biennial distributed throughout the entire city, crowds in Barsasha, barracks used for art and fashion, parties every night in the House of Students where the artists lived;
- and then Athens 2003, with Tritzis Park, distant from the city center but well known by the huge crowds that poured out there every night to see performances and exhibitions: for the first time people had to queue for the visual arts productions;
- finally, the fourth Italian edition, Naples 2005, with Sant'Elmo Castle dominating the city and the gulf, the daily climb together with thousands of young people and then once inside the Castle being surrounded by artworks and people, every floor from the palisades to the moat, brimming with incredible creativity.
You've just read through some fragments of Biennial memories, to which we should add "Routes Méditerranéennes," the first small Biennial in Tipasa (Algeria) in 1990, "Anteprima Rock" and "Anteprima Teatro" (Turin, 1990 and 1992) and the "Sarajevo Workshops" in 1998.
This can only be the subjective and limited partial view, of someone who has not yet missed a single Biennial, and has tried to summarize them all here and now. There are numerous other points of view, inasmuch as hundreds of thousands young people are estimated to have animated the Biennials attending performances and exhibitions. But this is the beauty of the project, being able to give everyone an idea, a stimulus, sometimes disturbing but always capable of arousing something in the people and the cities where it is held.
Over the years the Biennial has become a community of people as well: in many places around the Mediterranean many people have believed in it, never abandoning that crazy idea, and have committed their energy to overcoming hard times.
The enthusiasm of the young artists helped us all, thanking us at the end of the Biennial and remembering their own Biennial as one of the most beautiful things in their lives. This inspired us to continue the search for fresh solutions and new opportunities. To search for new locations to host and bring life to future Biennials.