What is a gift? Who gives what, to whom, and why? In a world where we are surrounded by objects intended as products and commodities, certain works of art seem to underline the importance of disinterested and gratuitous gestures, capable of generating and symbolizing a new binding relationship among artist, work and viewer. At the same time, other works show how often the nature of gifts is ambiguously suspended between generosity and challenge, altruism and egoism, and how often behind seemingly innocuous offerings and generous homages lies an attempt to establish and impose power relationships. Beyond the residues of ancient customs and measures, today the rules of giving and receiving are becoming explicit and progressively lose their symbolic value, with gifts bought and offered according to pre-constituted and repetitive models of desire. In other words, every gift can be generous or perverse, sincere or insidious, discreet or invasive.

With the aim of shedding light on the multiple meanings veiled in the acts of giving and receiving, The Gift presents works that have been conceived by artists as gifts, dedications, homages, invitations, gestures of hospitality, and gratuitous offerings. While the exhibition presents some works from the 1960s and ’70s, it focuses
primarily on recent works by emerging and well-established artists from around the world. The works range from gifts of one’s self or body to insidious and threatening invitations.

The Gift was initially co-produced by the Centro Arte Contemporanea Palazzo delle Papesse of Siena (Italy) and the Centro Culturale Candiani in Mestre/Venice. The traveling exhibition was developed and organized by ICI in collaboration with the Centro Arte Contemporanea and is circulated by ICI. It is accompanied by an illustrated brochure produced by ICI, containing an essay by the curators. Also available is the 520-page bilingual (Italian/ English) catalogue Il Dono of the exhibition presented at the Palazzo delle Papesse, with twenty essays by philo-sophers, anthropologists, art critics, and comparative-literature scholars on the themes of gifts and hospitality.

Exhibition Itinerary
The Gift

Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
Scottsdale, AZ
February 7 - May 5, 2002

Bronx Museum of the Arts
Bronx, New York
November 27, 2002 - March 2, 2003

Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University
Evanston, IL
April 4 - June 22, 2003

Art Gallery of Hamilton
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
August 9, 2003 - October 18, 2003