PIANO is a Franco-Italian platform for artistic exchanges created by DCA between 2014 and 2016. It has been a tool for binational dialogue and artistic production in a way that is adapted to the diversity of the cultural venues involved, art centres on the French side, public and private museums, foundations or alternative spaces on the Italian side, while remaining open to other European players.

The PIANO platform, based on its references in the two languages, was conceived both as a work plan and as a polyphonic instrument offering a wide range of project opportunities in various tempos, to allow the pooling of diverse artistic proposals and production means.

This unique coordination of Franco-Italian networks has given rise to a new geography, different levels and ways of working between the structures and the artists. Like the “prepared piano” invented by Erik Satie and later popularised by John Cage, the platform invited a renewed use of the instruments of cultural exchange, favouring innovative alliances, hybridisation and the combination of different approaches.

PIANO also responded to the need, in a context of global crisis affecting artists, art professionals and their structures, to reinvent ways of working together, of co-producing and optimising the dissemination of works.

A website designed and managed by CURA has become an online tool for sharing information among professionals and a resource platform open to the public.

Press Kit — PIANO 2014 (Fr)
Press Kit — PIANO 2015 (Fr)

Launched by DCA, the French national network of contemporary art centres, with the support of the Institut français Italia, the Ministry of Culture and the Nuovi Mecenati Foundation, the PIANO platform has enabled players in the contemporary art world in France and Italy, who play an essential role in the establishment and support of the art scenes of these two countries, to dialogue and work together with a focus on an international perspective, gradually expanding its circle to include other stakeholders in the transalpine art scene.