E IL TOPO. History of an artists’ magazine with an unusual editorial strategy.

The publishing project E IL TOPO reconstructs the evolution and achievements of the artists’ magazine of the same title, produced from 1992 to 1996, and then from 2012 to the present. It is composed of a boxed set containing two volumes, as well as eight artists’ posters. The first volume is the anastatic reprint of all 33 issues of the magazine, in the original size. The second volume reconstructs the conceptual matrix that has given rise to this unique example of independent and collaborative publishing, with essays by Anna Cuomo, Françoise Lonardoni, and Giorgio Verzotti. The magazine E IL TOPO was founded by Gabriele Di Matteo and Franco Silvestro together with Armando della Vittoria, Piero Gatto and vedova Mazzei, in Naples in 1992, but its editorial team has always been international, transgenerational and anti-hierarchical. Over the years, the group has been composed of about 20 individuals, in a fluid configuration that has brought together different artists and authors, in many cases for work on specific projects and exchanges: Stefano Arienti, Massimo Bartolini, Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan, Mark Dion, Jimmie Durham, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, John Lurie, Eva Marisaldi, Miltos Manetas, Amedeo Martegani, Cesare Viel, Luca Vitone, among others. The unusual editorial strategy resides, for the most part, in the intrinsic power of discontinuity of meaning, but also of play, irony and détournement. E IL TOPO is still an international “movement” today, transmitting a libertarian attitude whose modus operandi tolerates no preset roles, but is always open to multidisciplinary and multi-authorial contributions.