Pure Piedmont Diverse Works of Eight Turin-Based Artists on Display in Rare Show by Gary Tischler For a few days, Piedmont was all the rage at the Italian Cultural Institute. It was nothing but Piedmont this and Piedmont that. All the buzz was partially to correct a popular clichÈ: After all, when folks think Italian, they think Rome, Sicily, Florence, Venice, Milan. But Piedmont, and everything this diverse region in the Northwestern pocket of Italy has to offer, is rarely the first place people think about. The other reason was of course that in 2006, people will be talking about Piedmont quite a bit. Thatís when the Winter Olympics are set to be held in Turin, the capital of Piedmont, and its beautiful Alpine surrounding. So, Piedmont Weekóheld back in Juneówas a celebration and introduction to this overlooked region of Italy. It included a celebration of the open-air Museum of Modern Architecture created by Olivetti in Ivrea held at the Italian Embassy, as well as a cultural tourism exhibit that included a film on the Olympics and touted all things wonderful from the Piedmont region, including its rice, wines, medieval churches, villages, cuisine and cities. There was also a gala dinner and screenings of several films that featured Piedmont as a backdrop. The lingering effects of this celebration can still be seen at the Italian Cultural Institute where the works of eight prominent Turin-based artists, rarely seen in the United States, are on display through Sept. 13. The exhibition features two works by each artist, who are all well known not only in Piedmont and Italy but all over Europe. As a group, they represent a diverse range of styles, backgrounds, obsessions, methods and approaches. The diversity certainly says something about Turin and Piedmont and how itís different from other Italian regions in the sense that it combines a crossroads, northern quality and marries it with traditional Mediterranean characteristics. If Turin is noted for its reputation as an industrial city, it can find its expression in the twisted, aggressive sculptures of Riccardo Cordero, whose larger works can be found in public spaces all over Piedmont as well as Italy. If fashion is something of an Italian passion, it gets a full artistic airing in the two haunting, elegant portraits by Guiseppe Mantovani, who is also a noted art historian and teacher in Turin. Giacomo Soffiantino is a Turin native now in his seventies who has undergone several metamorphoses during his career but remains fresh and new, as seen in his two swirly oils from 2001. Francesco Casorati in his two offerings gives us surrealism and symbolism, while Adriana Baitone Ravera, the only woman in the group, is all color, line and shape. She is also the winner of the 2001 Cesar Pavese prize for painting. Amid all of these sharply contemporary and abstract works, there is Mauro Chessa and his sun-baked, stubbornly realistic paintings of railroad tracks and junked, rusting cars in suburbia. These artistsócharacteristic and individualisticóall speak about themselves and of Piedmont, proving that this Italian region is certainly worth a closer look. ìEight Piedmont Contemporary Artistsî runs through Sept. 13 at the Italian Cultural Institute, 2025 M St., NW. For more information, please call (202) 223-1128 or visit www.italcultusa.org. Gary Tischler is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.