Description

The project is based on an idea of Roberto Cuoghi, to examine in depth the concept of “Dismeasure,” in all its ambiguity of definition and dubious defendability, by retracing several of its aspects, from the individual to the system, the isolation of the single person to the capillary social order. The whole spectrum of content found in this survey reveals the intrinsic role of Dismeasure as an indicator of extreme specialization, always lacking a comprehensive vision; driven by a reductionist approach and through selection of evidence, the observation of this concept is analyzed with the aim of defending its survival, be it harmless or vengeful.
The work on Dismeasure will be expressed in different settings, including an exhibition. From a broader perspective, the two curators wanted to acknowledge certain formal results—featured prominently in the last twenty years of Italian art—as carriers of the same tension that characterizes the distinctive nature of Dismeasure.
The book is not a descriptive and iconographic compendium of the works on display in the exhibition curated by Roberto Cuoghi and Milovan Farronato at the Museo del Novecento in Milan (in collaboration with DOCVA Documentation Center for Visual Arts), but rather a multidisciplinary expansion of the concept, through a collection of compositions commissioned especially for this occasion to six authors, whose expertise is related to the idea of Dismeasure.
Milovan Farronato’s introduction is a collection of suggestions that were organized in the book’s first phase of research. Roberto Cuoghi introduces the essays with a brief indication of the conceptual limits that inform the whole volume.