LE STAZIONI DELL’ARTE  
Le Stazioni dell’arte della metropolitana di Napoli sono un vero e proprio museo distribuito sull’area urbana della rete di trasporto su ferro. Gli spazi interni ed esterni delle stazioni hanno accolto, sotto il coordinamento artistico di Achille Bonito Oliva, 200 opere di 90 tra i più prestigiosi autori protagonisti dell’arte contemporanea mondiale.

Dipinti, sculture, mosaici, fotografie, installazioni, “site specific”, direttamente commissionati agli artisti di fama internazionale come Jannis Kounellis, Joseph Kosuth, Mimmo Paladino, Sol Lewitt, Mario Merz, hanno contribuito a ridisegnare gli ambienti di transito. Ciascuna stazione dell'arte è dotata infatti di caratteristiche stilistiche proprie, progettata in funzione dei siti destinati ad accoglierle. Ai progettisti inoltre è stato affidato anche il compito di ridisegnare il sistema stradale e di arredo circostante, determinando così una forte riqualificazione sociale ed estetica di vaste aree del tessuto urbano. 

La realizzazione delle “stazioni dell’arte” del metrò, affidata ad architetti di fama internazionale del calibro di Gae Aulenti, Dominique Perrault, Atelier Mendini, Oscar Tousquet Blanca, Dominique Perrault, Alvaro Siza, ha permesso di riqualificare vaste aree del tessuto urbano. Gli ambienti di transito, i cosiddetti “non luoghi” del pubblico trasporto, diventano così scenografia di un’operazione culturale di ampio respiro voluta dall’amministrazione comunale cittadina per diffondere in modo nuovo l’arte fra la gente. 

Per garantire la tutela di questo ricco patrimonio d’arte pubblica, l’Azienda Napoletana Mobilità e Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli curano la manutenzione e il restauro delle opere d’arte. Gli interventi di manutenzione e restauro sono condotti dall’Accademia con il coinvolgimento nell’esperienza del “cantiere -scuola” degli allievi e dei tirocinanti del Corso di Conservazione e Restauro delle opere d’Arte Contemporanea.

Le Stazioni dell’Arte costituiscono uno degli esempi più interessanti di museo decentrato e distribuito sull’area urbana. Un museo che non è spazio chiuso, luogo di concentrazione delle opere d’arte, ma percorso espositivo aperto, per una fruizione allargata e dinamica del prodotto artistico. Una stazione della metropolitana può intercettare il viaggiatore distratto, assonnato, normalmente disinteressato e stimolare la sua curiosità, abituandolo all’idea che anche l’arte contemporanea può diventare parte della sua esperienza quotidiana. 

Per favorire una fruizione consapevole dell’arte, ANM realizza azioni di comunicazione e didattica che coinvolgono gli istituti scolastici e le realtà associative operanti sul territorio cittadino, con visite guidate gratuite rivolte a cittadini e turisti. 


TOLEDO
La stazione più bella del vecchio continente
Costruita su progetto dell’architetto catalano Oscar Tousquets Blanca, la stazione Toledo della Linea 1 metropolitana di Napoli è stata insignita di più di un riconoscimento internazionale. La spettacolarità dell’infrastruttura, unita alla funzionalità degli ambienti di viaggio, le è valsa il titolo di stazione più bella d’Europa secondo la classifica del quotidiano britannico Daily Telegraph. 

“Metro Art Focus Tour” – ANM per la cultura 
In questi anni la cultura è entrata a far parte dell’azione azione quotidiana dell’Azienda Napoletana Mobilità. Le “Stazioni dell’Arte” e le tante iniziative connesse, realizzate in partenariato con Associazioni e Istituzioni, hanno permesso all’azienda di entrare a far parte dell’orizzonte culturale locale e internazionale da protagonista.

Dopo il successo dei “Metro Art Tour”, visite guidate gratuite del martedì alle stazioni dell’arte, l’offerta culturale che da anni ANM svolge con le attività divulgative e formative si è ulteriormente arricchita con una nuova iniziativa didattica denominata “Metro Art Focus Tour”. Le lezioni tematiche itineranti, si sono caratterizzate per una più approfondita conoscenza del ricco patrimonio di arte pubblica distribuito nella subway napoletana, offrendo a tutti, appassionati, turisti e curiosi, l’occasione per esplorare la varietà dei linguaggi artistici, evidenziare le relazioni tra lo scenario locale e quello internazionale attraverso la narrazione delle opere e dei loro autori. 
Innovativa e di grande interesse la collaborazione con il Dipartimento di Educazione del Museo Madre che a febbraio 2015 ha visto l’ANM protagonista insieme al Museo Archivio Laboratorio per le Arti contemporanee Hermann Nitsch e alla Fondazione Morra Greco deltour CONTEMPORANeapolis, un itinerario gratuito alla scoperta dei luoghi del contemporaneo disseminati nelle strade del centro antico della città di Napoli. Nel percorso inedito, la visita alla Stazione Dante della Linea 1 metropolitana, con le tele di Carlo Alfano, il mosaico di Nicola De Maria, i neon di Joseph Kosuth, le installazioni dei due massimi esonenti dell’arte povera Jannis Kounellis e Michelangelo Pistoletto. 

Valorizzazione, tutela e didattica delle Stazioni dell’Arte
L’Azienda Napoletana Mobilità realizza qualificati progetti educativi per i più giovani coinvolgendo centinaia di alunni di istituti scolastici (di grado primario, secondario inferiore e superiore) e istituti universitari. Nel solo anno scolastico 2013-2014 sono stati coinvolti oltre 50 Istituti scolastici del territorio campano e nazionale, per un totale di ca. 2500 alunni.

La collaborazione scientifica con la cattedra di Problematiche di Conservazione del Contemporaneo dell’Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli
L’Ufficio Gestione Patrimonio Artistico ANM, nell’ambito della Convenzione con l’Accademia di Belle Arti per la conservazione, tutela e restauro delle opere del metrò, collabora con la cattedra di Problematiche di Conservazione del Contemporaneo della Scuola di Restauro, tenuta dalla prof.ssa Giovanna Cassese. L’iniziativa indirizzata agli allievi dell’Accademia, prevede lezioni d’aula sulle Stazioni dell’Arte e sopralluoghi in stazione. Al termine del percorso formativo gli studenti, in occasione del Maggio dei Monumenti ad esempio, hanno partecipato in qualità di guide ai programmi di visite gratuite rivolte a cittadini e turisti.

La collaborazione con Legambiente e le due edizioni del Corso di Arte Contemporanea 
Nel 2013 è stata avviata una proficua collaborazione con Legambiente Campania, che ha portato alla realizzazione di due edizioni del corso di arte contemporanea “METROART, LA BELLEZZA NEI LUOGHI DI TRANSITO - Le Stazioni dell’Arte della Linea 1 della metropolitana di Napoli”, con il Patrocinio del Comune di Napoli Assessorato alla Cultura. A entrambe le edizioni del corso di formazione, hanno partecipato 20 persone selezionate sulla base dell’attinenza del percorso di studi (laureati e laureandi in Discipline Storico-Artistiche, Conservazione dei Beni Culturali e Architettura). Tale attività formativa, grazie alla collaborazione dei giovani volontari Legambiente, ha consentito di incrementare l’offerta di visite guidate gratuite, con percorsi di visita diversificati. Il nuovoprogramma di visite straordinarie guidate dalle volontarie Legambiente è stato organizzato nei fine settimana per soddisfare crescente domanda di cittadini e turisti. 

METRO ART STATION - Naples
The art stations of Naples has transformed local metro into commuter-friendly art spaces that are some of the most impressive in Europe. The Art stations originated from a project formulated by the city government with a view to make the urban area’s public transport centers more attractive and to give everyone a chance to get an up-close look at prime examples of contemporary art.

Under the direction of Achille Bonto Oliva, former director of the Venice Biennale, several stations have been converted into art galleries displaying over 200 works by more than 90 artists and architects such as Alessandro Mendini, Gae Aulenti, Karim Rashid, Oscar Tousquet Blanca and Dominique Perrault. Not only do these stations function as underground galleries, but they are architectural feats that stand alone as works of art.

Metro Art Stations
Of the eighteen stations of Line 1, eleven are known as Stations of Art: Garibaldi, Toledo, Università, Municipio Dante, Museo, Materdei, Salvator Rosa, Quattro Giornate, Vanvitelli, Rione Alto. o which four Stations of Line 6 have been added: Mostra, Augusto, Lala, Mergellina.

The project of Stations of Art has been promoted by the town administration to make the transportation environment more attractive, to put big areas of the city to its best use and to offer everybody the possibility to meet contemporary art. 

The idea of giving a very high artistic and cultural level to the stations has been accomplished in two different ways. On one side the internal and external spaces of the stations, collecting 200 works realized by 90 of the most prestigious contemporary artists, make one of the most interesting examples of a museum located on the whole urban area. In this way the museum is not a closed space with its usual concentration of works; it is an exhibition route on the open space for a dynamic enjoyment of the art. On the other side the realization of the same stations, submitted to architects known all over the world as Gae Aulenti, Alessandro Mendini, Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani and Karim Rashid, Oscar Tousquets Blanca and Dominique Perrault, improves big areas of the city.

The insertion of the works of art in the subway is not a simple answer to usual demands of decoration of a public structure, which is also important as it can represents a meaningful index of quality of life; neither the presence of art works underlines a project of a "compulsory museum", able to force the hasty traveler to an unexpected meeting with the art.

The works of art of the subway do not have only the purpose "to embellish" or to make the environment more pleasant. According to their position, they improve the architectural space; they define the internal spaces or contribute to realize a remarkable interaction between architectural and the urban context.

ANM management of such artistic patrimony is quite complex comparing to the general management of urban public transportation. To better understand the management of the Stations of Art is useful to introduce the notion of "non-lieu" ("non-place", defined by Marc Augè in Non-Lieux, introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité, Le Seuil, 1992). In fact the main purpose of the art Station, well connected to the historical places and well integrate to the transit spaces of the city is to preserve the crucial points of the net of urban transportation from the anonymity and the homogeneity that usually characterizes stations, airports, highways.

Which is the role played by works of art? If certain number of works would have been located as simply objects and icons, of various natures and of various origins, underling a condition of isolation in the new context of the stations, they would have looked like pathetic fragments of life or of historical memories exhibited under the glass. 

On the contrary a braver game has been played with paintings, sculptures, mosaics, photos and the installations directly commissioned to the artists who have been able to redraw the environment. 

Important artists as Jannis Kounellis, Joseph Kosuth, Mimmo Paladino, Sol Lewitt, Enzo Cucchi, Mario Merz, Renato Barisani, Mimmo Rotella, William Kentridge, Robert Wilson, Michelangelo Pistoletto, have been asked to give a face and a voice to the need of identity and of historicity that the time in which we live, called by Augè "surmodernité" (“supermodernity”), forces to the borders of the social life.

The art from the inside of the stations moves outside, where it starts to correspond with the unpublished signals left by the history. In some Stations of the art, some works located along internal paths are directly linked to those located into open spaces, in buffer areas or entirely external to the perimeter of the stations.

One of the most meaningful examples of extension of art station over the physical borders of buildings is offered by the station "Salvator Rosa", designed by Studio Mendini and endowed with two exits quite far from each other, marked by two colored obelisks made in glass and steel. The inner works of art are ringed by those externals leaded into historical architecture of a Roman bridge and a neoclassic chapel. They carry mosaics and wall painting to the walls of the surrounding buildings until bravely absorbing a very high-density traffic zone next the second exit. 

This enormous artistic patrimony requires special cares, both specific and different according the characteristics of the materials and the techniques used in the realization of the single works. In fact in the subway they are different typologies of installations: from oil-painting or acrylic to mosaics, from the sculptures in bronze or in steel to the tubular neon, from the majolica to the light box and to the photos. To protect such public patrimony and to arrange the good state of preservation, the maintenance and the restoration of the works, ANM has stipulated an agreement with Academy of Arts of Naples and Metropolitana of Naples (the dealership of the Municipality of Naples for the planning and construction of the Line 1). It is an example of cooperation of involved parts, in order to emphasize competency and young people.

Within this project, every work is filed both from the historical-artistic and preservation point of view, with regards to the knowledge of techniques, of materials used and of the state of maintenance, according to the standard methods of “Istituto Centrale per il Restauro”. All artists are interviewed to catalogue techniques and materials. Moreover a photographic promotion edited by Fabio Donato, teacher at the Academy and author of some art works, proves by documents the status of each work, from the damages to the maintenance and restoration.

The maintenance and restoration necessary are realized therefore from the Academy with the involvement of "yard-school" students and of the trainees of the Contemporary Art Maintenance and Restoration Course. 

The great variety of materials and techniques used (already mentioned) makes also the activities of maintenance very interesting. In the case of the great work "Untitled" of Jannis Kounellis (200 x 2340 cm), installed in the station "Dante", the restoration was quite complex due to the heterogeneity of the materials (steel plates, iron beam, shoes, coat, hat, little trains). Consequently different treatments were necessary in order to remove dust, to scale crusts and stains. 

Before restoring common materials worn by the weather, it was also necessary to think about the limits of restoration, not to risk to return to the public an art work "newer" that the one created by the artist.

Besides the mentioned project of preservation , ANM is involved also for what concerns the logistic organization and the demands of the circulation of the trains and the passengers. Several works in fact are installed above escalators linking the entrance to sidewalk of the stations. For instance, for the extraordinary maintenance of "Intermediterraneo", a work of Michelangelo Pistoletto, needed to realize two suspended scaffolds whose weight didn't burden on moving staircase. 

ANM wants to develop the potentialities of this project: the Stations of the art are not only containers of valuable works with regard of their structural aspects and their symbolic value. They urge an active relationship with the territory in which they insist. For these reasons Metronapoli has realized agreements with the town institutions, schools and private associations in order to make art stations public places for local communities.

The object of ANM SpA, is to guarantee an efficient service in line with demands and expectations of people and in same time to guarantee its maintenance, to support their knowledge and to make, the mentioned daily transit places, a scenario where is possible to identify and recognize all symbols of the city.

TOLEDO, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL STATION OF THE OLD CONTINENT
Built by Catalan architect Oscar Tousquets Blanca, Toledo station it has received more international recognition. This stunning station has competition: it's part of the city's network of so-called Metro Art Stations. 
The spectacular infrastructure combined with the functionality of travel environments in 2014 earned her the title of "most beautiful station in Europe" according to British newspaper Daily Telegraph ranking; among the finest stations in the world according to the ranking American broadcaster CNN. It was also awarded the prestigious international "Emirates Glass LEAF Awards" in 2013 as "Public Works of the Year" in the "Transport and Infrastructure" category. Finally in 2015 was awarded the "ITA International Tunneling Awards", the Oscars of the Department of Public Works in the most innovative underground, he must Hagerbach in Switzerland.Opened in 2012, Toledo station defies its depth at 50 meters, one of the deepest in Naples, with a design based around themes of light and water. The spectacular skylight work "Crater de luz" illuminated by the LED lighting system designed by Bob Wilson, has become the symbolic work of the metro art stations. It is a large cone that crosses in depths of the station, connecting the street level with the spectacular hall built 40 meters underground. Looking into the other end of the world and the fascinating interplay of LEDs governed by the software programmed by Robert Wilson (Relative light).A work called "Light Panels" by Robert Wilson illuminates the escalator station corridor furthest underground.

Press Agent

Maria Gilda Donadio
tel. +39 0815594252
email: [email protected]; www.anm.it;