AR/GE KUNST

Ar/Ge Kunst, Bolzano’s kunstverein, was founded in 1985 on the premises of via Museo 29. The name Ar/Ge Kunst is an abbreviation of the German word Arbeitsgemeinschaft (working group), which was chosen to promote the idea of collective work, and also has the meaning to unsettle (coming from the German word arge).

The Kunstverein aims to reinforce the collective aspect inherent in the name Ar/Ge Kunst as a research and production space for the arts, in which every new production forges a new working group of practitioners from different walks of life, to think through impending social, legal and artistic questions.

The oblique line between "Ar" and "Ge" has been an integral part of the gallery's identity since its inception, and has therefore been retained albeit in the context of updating the typography of the entire identity.

Grids

Three horizontal bands cut across most print and digital materials: the three languages (Italian, German, English) through which Ar/Ge Kunst's communication is developed. The three rows are in turn separated into regular columns to organize the information, thus constructing a rigid grid flexible enough to adapt to multiple formats. Where necessary, the organization into rows and columns is reversed.

Typography

Following the idea of using "local" typography for projects with a well-defined territorial context (as has already been the case for Confcooperative and Pocodisegno), Sempione Grotesk, published by the CAST foundry in Bolzano, was mainly adopted for the identity, occasionally joined for bodies of text by Teodor of Displaay.

Website

In addition to the design and development of the website, Norma was also responsible for migrating the content archive (exhibitions and publications), attempting where possible to maintain the pre-existing addresses of each item. This intervention keeps the gallery's history intact while totally overhauling both the visual aspect of the site and the platform on which it is based (from Wordpress to Sanity): an aspect that is often overlooked in projects of this magnitude.

The website can be viewed at argekunst.it

Giorgio Del Buono (identity), Giorgia Florenzano (identity, website) and Martina Eddone (data entry) worked on this project together with Norma.