A project by the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art in collaboration with Milan City Council’s Leisure Section, De Vleeshal in Middelburg and the Fondation d’entreprise Ricard in Paris. Sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris.

Beyond the Dust – Artists’ Documents Today is a European exhibition project presenting twelve artists who are starting to emerge on the international scene.

It will take place from September 2010 to January 2011 at venues in the Netherlands, Italy and France: De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal in Middelburg, the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan and the Fondation d’entreprise Ricard in Paris. In three separate exhibitions each artist will address a specific aspect of an overall project on the authenticity or falsehood of documents and archive material.

Beyond the Dust – Artists’ Documents Today provides the artists with a theoretical hypothesis on the use and manipulation of forms, images and texts, highlighting both their formal implications and their philosophical, political and social content. The artists will thus not only reflect on the potential themes raised by the various components, but will offer a broader reflection on the contemporary meaning of memory, and hence authenticity, fiction and falsehood.

The Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art hopes that this project will help promote and develop international cultural exchanges in support of young Italian artists, which has been its mission ever since it was set up in 2001. The initiative will enable the full richness and value of such exchanges to be displayed at Milan’s Fabbrica del Vapore, thanks to the Dena Foundation’s Artists’ Residence Programme at the Centre International d’Accueil et d’Echanges des Récollets in Paris. At the same time it will allow the public to experience for themselves the vital importance to artists of mobility and contact with the practice of art in other countries.

A catalogue to accompany the project has been produced by Roma Publications in partnership with the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP) in Paris.

The CNAP has also sponsored the unique work by Richard Sympson which, in the form of an artist’s book, will provide the exhibition with an unusual archive.