Inside the ex-Ospedale dei Bastardini in Bologna, one does not generally witness an apotropaic blaze, one that puts hairs on your chest, and a new birth does not always rise from the ashes. Yet Durham's suggestion hovers, clears the way in the courtyard, enters — partly by force, partly by chance — into the spaces given to each of the finalists. The exhibition has a circular route articulated in five rooms, around a crumbling and patched-up plaster that gives the impression of voluntary dilapidation. This heterogeneous group of artists have each brought a piece into the venue (two, really: one on show, the other to the table of the jury in the form of a study for the future), making an effort to develop a solid and coherent dialogue with their work.
It is courageous, as an institutional decision, to dedicate attention to the "emerging" and encourage them, giving weight to the approach and specificity of their work
