$2 million from the Donald R. Sobey Family Foundation for the artists representing Canada at La Biennale di Venezia

The National Gallery of Canada Foundation announce the receipt of an exceptional gift of $2 million from the Donald R. Sobey Family Foundation.

This lead gift of the Donald R. Sobey Foundation will establish the Canadian Artists in Venice Endowment at the National Gallery of Canada Foundation.  The endowment will provide vital financial support to Canadian artists representing Canada at La Biennale di Venezia, the iconic international biennial art exhibition in Venice, Italy, better known as the Venice Biennale.  This fund is being endowed with the aim of attracting other philanthropic partners.

The Venice Biennale is the most important recurring international gathering of the contemporary art community.  Every two years, over 80 countries send official entries to the Biennale and its coveted art prizes have attracted top talent and defined artists' careers for over a century.  Canadian artists have been presented for over 60 years andCanada's participation has been instrumental in promoting the reputation of Canadian artists and their work within the global artistic community.

"We are delighted to lead the way in making this first contribution to this innovative endowment," said Donald Sobey, former Chair of the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Canada.  "We loved the idea of partnering with other philanthropists from across the country to establish sustainable support for Canada in Venice.  Our sincere hope is that this endowment will enhance the National Gallery's operational capacity of the Canadian Pavillion and, in so doing, will have a transformative impact on the place of Canadian artists in the international art community," he concluded.

"The Gallery is most grateful to the Donald R. Sobey family for their ongoing generosity and their visionary contribution to Canadian contemporary art," said National Gallery Director and CEO, Marc Mayer.  "Canada has some of the brightest and most talented artists in the world. Canadians need to see their work, the world needs to see their work," observed Mr. Mayer.

Inaugural Naming Initiative at the National Gallery of Canada

In consideration of the gift, the National Gallery of Canada Foundation will take the unprecedented step of naming a major space in the Gallery after the Donald R. Sobey family.

The Chair of the Foundation, Thomas d'Aquino, said, "It is with great pride that for the first time in the Gallery's history, we attach the name of a major donor and his family to one of the public spaces of this great institution.  The recognition is richly deserved and acknowledges the visionary philanthropy of the Donald R. Sobey family in support of the National Gallery of Canada as a centre of national and global excellence."

The Donald R. Sobey Family and Canadian Art

The Donald R. Sobey Family has made several donations to the National Gallery of Canada and the national collection. This has included the establishment of the Sobey Chief Curator's Research Endowment; the purchase of Michel De Brouin's exterior sculpture, Majestic, and numerous contributions to exhibition and acquisition projects since 1997. Above and beyond this, the Sobey Art Foundation  funds the Sobey Art Award, supporting the Canadian contemporary art community with over $100,000 in prizes since the inception of the awards in 2002.

About the National Gallery of Canada Foundation

The National Gallery of Canada Foundation is dedicated to supporting the National Gallery of Canada in fulfilling its mandate. By fostering strong philanthropic partnerships, the Foundation provides the Gallery with the additional financial support required to lead Canada's visual arts community locally, nationally and internationally. The blend of public support and private philanthropy empowers the Gallery to preserve and interpret Canada's visual arts heritage. The Foundation welcomes present and deferred gifts for special projects and endowments. To learn more about the National Gallery of Canada Foundation, visit http://www.gallery.ca/en/give/foundation.php .

About the National Gallery of Canada

The National Gallery of Canada is home to the most important collection of historical and contemporary Canadian art. The Gallery also maintains Canada's premier collection of European Art from the 14th to the 21st century, as well as important works of American, Asian and Indigenous Art and renowned international collections of prints, drawings and photographs. Created in 1880, the National Gallery of Canada has played a key role in Canadian culture for well over a century. Among its principal missions is to increase access to excellent works of art for all Canadians. For more information, visit gallery.ca  

Simon Denny NZ sito on-line

Ora è on-line il sito del progetto di Simon Denny per la Nuova Zelanda al link http://www.nzatvenice.com

The New Zealand pavilion will be split across two sites: one modern, at the edge of Venice and one historical, at its heart.

Simon Denny will be the first Biennale artist to use the terminal at Marco Polo Airport, designed by architect Gian Paolo Mar. Here, people converge from all over the world. For most visitors, it is their first point of contact with Venice. Extending through the arrivals lounge, Denny’s installation will operate between national borders, mixing the languages of commercial display, contemporary airport interior design, and historical representations of the value of knowledge.

The other half of the pavilion will be the Monumental Rooms at the Marciana Library in Piazza San Marco, designed by Jacopo Sansovino during the Renaissance. Decorated with paintings by artists including Titian and Tintoretto, depicting philosophy and wisdom, the Library is an allegory for the benefits of acquiring knowledge. It also houses historical maps and globes, including Fra Mauro’s early world map, containing information obtained by travellers, merchants and navigators including Marco Polo. It is one of the first European maps to depict Japan, for example. Here, Denny’s installation will draw analogies between this spectacular but obsolete map and the way the world is mapped and managed today.

PATRONS

Leigh Melville, Head of Patrons, and Heather Galbraith, the Commissioner, invite your support for New Zealand’s presentation at the world’s most prestigious art biennale. For donations of $5,000 and more, you can become a member of an exclusive group, the Patrons of the Venice Biennale 2015. In recognition of your support, you can enjoy a rare opportunity to be part of New Zealand’s presence in Venice.

You will be offered:

Two tickets for the three-day Vernissage preview (Tuesday 5 May – Friday 8 May), which is attended by VIPs, media, and arts professionals. A limited number of tickets is available to each participating country.

A copy of the Secret Power book.

Name acknowledgement in promotional materials in Venice and in New Zealand.

Invitations to openings and ceremonies.

Indigenous Voices

Oggi il sito http://universes-in-universe.org segnala la partecipazione dell'IILA con il progetto Indigenous Voices. 

(text from http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/bien/venice_biennale/2015/tour/latin_america/curatorial_text) 

The indigenous population of Latin America totals approx. 28 million people, which means a 6% of the total population. Amerindian languages are used in all 20 countries with the exception of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There are 600 altogether, corresponding to a 10% of the idioms existing in the world. About a third of them are threatened with extinction, and another third are in a critical situation. The languages Quechua (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia), Guarani (Paraguay), Aymara (Bolivia, Chile, Peru) and Nahuatl (Mexico) each have several million speakers; in the case of Arara (Brazil), Bribri (Costa Rica), Pipil (Honduras) and Chorote (Argentina) there are fewer than a thousand speakers.

More than 150 languages are spoken in Brazil, compared to only a handful in some Central American countries. 85% of the languages that originally existed in the year 1500 are already extinct. The Yamana language in Tierra del Fuego is spoken by no more than one single person: Cristina Calderón, who was born in 1938 in Puerto Williams (Chile). With every extinct language not only disappears a valuable linguistic heritage, but also a genuine perspective of the world and environment. Given this dramatic situation, it is a hopeful sign that a new indigenism can be observed in most countries of the continent, and traditional ways of life are being seriously discussed. This applies not only to Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, but also to Brazil and even Argentina.

Brazil has created several hundred reserves known as ‘terras indígenas’. In Bolivia, the ‘rights of nature’ have been incorporated into the country’s constitution as an expression of ‘sumak kawsay’, which means ‘buen vivir’, good life, or ‘pure and harmonious life’ in the Quechua language. The issue here is a way of life that enables a harmonious coexistence both among human beings and between man and nature. It is worth noting that contemporary art has increasingly been turning toward the historical heritage in recent years. It seems that contemporaries no longer feel capable of solving the pressing problems of the present on their own. It’s almost as though there were a secret agreement with the old masters, an echo whose power runs through the centuries. This would give us loyal companion for our journey, and we would not be solely dependent on our thinking.

At the same time, art is increasingly incorporating scientific methods of collecting, archiving and classifying. Already Alexander von Humboldt placed great emphasis on “ästhetische Behandlung naturhistorischer Gegenstände” [esthetic treatment of natural historical objects] and the unity of art and sciences. He used the expression “Naturgemälde” [nature painting] in several occasions, specifying the iconographical approach, by which artists can build upon today.

We selected artists who have an affinity for the indigenous linguistic heritage. The main factors in the choice of the 14 languages are not only the historical and cultural importance of the language and ethnic group, but also how close to the brink of extinction they are, and how much esthetic appeal they have. The artists will also determine the subject and the type of texts used (e.g. fiction, fable, prayer, scientific work).

On entering the room intentionally maintained austere, visitors will first hear a vague, polyphonic murmuring of all the voices together, a tapestry of sound reminiscent of a sacred space; they will then approach the individual loudspeakers though which every single language will be clearly audible. Individual text signs will give hints about the content and cultural background of each language.

The radical reduction of the installation to sound only demands intense concentration on the part of the visitors; the more the listeners are willing to immerse themselves in the cosmos of rare languages, the more visual elements can be dispensed with. It is also noteworthy that all the artists are participating in a collective work that knows neither hegemony nor rank.

The project is also meant as a contribution to the debate around the Humboldt-Forum, the most important cultural undertaking in Berlin, due to be finished in 2019. The sound works will be published as a DVD, to become part of important public art collections in South America and Europe. Furthermore, the sound installation will be shown by the Goethe-Institut in 12 cities of South America in 2015.

Latin American Pavilion at 56th Venice Biennale

Istituto Italo-Latinoamericano (IILA)

Indigenous Voices

9 May-22 November 2015  Arsenale – Isolotto

Curator: Alfons Hug

Co-curator: Alberto Saraiva

Commissioner: Sylvia Irrazábal

Curatorial Concept by Alfons Hug:

Artists, participants, languages:

Argentina

Laura Kalauz & Sofia Medici

* 1974 and * 1975 Buenos Aires, Argentina; live there.

Language: Selk’nam, Patagonia (extinct)

Bolivia

Sonia Falcone & José J. Laura Yapita

S. Falcone * 1965 Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Lives in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

J. Yapita: * 1968 La Paz, Bolivia; lives there.

Language: Aymara

Brazil

Adriana Barreto

* 1949 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Lives there and in Lisbon, Portugal.

Language: Sateré-Mauwé, Brazil, Amazonas

Paulo Nazareth

* 1977 Governador Valadares, Brazil. Lives in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Language: Kaiwá

Colombia

Agueda Pumené

* Colombia

Language: Sáliba, Colombia,

departments Vichada and Casanare

Costa Rica

Priscilla Monge

* 1968 San José, Costa Rica; lives there.

Language: Maléku

El Salvador

Mauricio Kabistán

* 1980 Nicaragua. Lives in El Salvador.

Language: Náhuat

Guatemala

Sandra Monterroso

* 1974 Guatemala City, Guatemala. 

Lives in Viena, Austria.

Language: Maya

Haiti

Barbara Prézeau

* 1965 Port-au-Prince, Haiti; lives there.

Language: Haitian Creole

Honduras

Leonardo González

* 1982 Tegucigalpa, Honduras; lives there.

Language: Tol

Nicaragua

Raúl Quintanilla

* 1954 Managua, Nicaragua; lives there.

Language: Miskito

Paraguay

Javier López & Erika Meza

J. López: * 1974 Havana, Cuba.

E. Meza: * 1968 San Pedro, Paraguay.

They live in Asunción, Paraguay.

Language: Sanapana

Peru

José Huamán Turpo

* 1961 Paucartambo, Peru. Lives in Cusco, Peru.

Language: Harákmbut

Uruguay

Gustavo Tabares

* 1968 Montevideo, Uruguay; lives there.

Language: Charrua (remaining words)

Special participation

Ellen Slegers

* 1972 Frankfurt, Germany. Lives in São Paulo, Brazil.

Language: Paiter Suruí, Brazil, Rondônia

Charles Lim Sea State

Il Padiglione di Singapore sarà dislocato presso la rinnovata  Sala d'Armi dell'Arsenale e ospiterà il progetto di Charles Lim dal titolo "Sea State" un video legato al mondo del mare, l'artista è un appassionato marinaio e vive la condizione tipica di chi vive su un'isola del mare pacifico, parte di un vasto progetto che è già stato presentato in altre tappe in giro per il mondo. 

Il progetto è curato da Shabbir Hussain Mustafa della National Gallery di Singapore.

Eccovi anche il sito http://seastate.sg

Damir Očko al Padiglione Croato

foto dal sito  www.damirocko.com

The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia is delighted to announce its participation at the 56th International Art Exhibition in Venice, with a project by Croatian artist Damir Očko, titled Studies on Shivering: The Third Degree, curated by Marc Bembekoff. 

The project conceived for the Croatian pavilion in Venice will expand the durational scheme that the artist has been developing over past few years with the new film production and new works presented alongside his recent film TK, further exploring the context and the ideas behind his artistic intentions.

The space in which Damir Očko’s artistic practice enfolds is a space of junction between poetical and political. The questions of the human body and the exploration of the physical realities of the body as a social or political subject have been the core of his recent oeuvre. The violence inherent in his works mirrors issues brought by instability between the apparent state of tranquility and the underlying violence of today’s globalized world. Damir Očko’s poems and films embody a latent form of violence, which is linked to a trauma inherent by the evolution from socialism to capitalism. His works intertwine elements that rightly and poetically translate the social constraints imposed to our bodies, evoking moments of passage and transition zones.

This tension between poetics and politics—the “bigger picture” and personal space—makes the work of Damir Očko relevant and inscribed in issues similar to those developed by Okwui Enwezor for the next Venice biennale.

foto dal sito  www.damirocko.com

The artist

Damir Očko (b. 1977, lives and works in Zagreb) is one of the most prominent Croatian artist of his generation. His videos, films,  poetry and works on paper have been exhibited recently in Temple Bar Gallery in Dublin (2014), KM – Künstlerhaus Halle für Kunst & Medien in Graz (2014),  Yvon Lambert gallery in Paris (2013), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2012), Galleria Tiziana Di Caro in Salerno (2012), and Kunsthalle Dusseldorf (2011). He participated in numerous collective exhibitions with institutions such as MUDAM, Luxembourg, FRAC Le Plateau in Paris, Kunsthalle Wien, and Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb among others. His works are part of many public and private collections  around the world.

foto dal sito  www.damirocko.com

The curator

Marc Bembekoff is currently Director of Centre d’art contemporain La Halle des bouchers in Vienne (Isère, France). He previously served as curator at Palais de Tokyo (2011–13) and Musée Rodin (2009–10), assistant curator at Frac Champagne-Ardenne (2007–09) and film assistant curator at Centre Pompidou (1999–2003). As an independent curator, he organized numerous exhibitions including projects with the collective Le Bureau/. He has contributed to several monographic publications and exhibition catalogues. Since 2013, he’s been part of the artistic Board of Flag-France Foundation (Paris).

Details related to the project and the venue, such as date and hour of the opening ceremony, will be announced in April 2015.

Damir Očko - Studies on Shivering: The Third Degree

Curator: Marc Bembekoff

May 9 – November 22, 2015

Croatian Pavilion - Venice

www.min-kulture.hr

 www.damirocko.com 

Tutto è avviato

Mancano solo poco più di due mesi per la nuova edizione della Biennale di Arti Visive, è il prossimo 5 Marzo si svolgerà la conferenza di presentazione presso Ca' Giustinian, sede della Biennale di Venezia, nelle eleganti stanze della Sala delle Colonne, alle ore 12, la presentazione, che vedrà coinvolti Paolo Baratta, Presidente della Biennale di Venezia, e Okwui Enwezor, curatore della 56. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte, sarà anche trasmessa in  live streaming all’indirizzo www.labiennale.org

News dal Padiglione Turco

Ecco vi le ultime notizie sul Padiglione Turco che presenterà il progetto installativo "Respiro". 

Ora c'è anche il sito

http://turkiyepavyonu15.iksv.org/indexEN.html

e  http://www.iksvphoto.com/#/folder/fd5c3z

The Pavilion of Turkey to present 'Respiro' by Sarkis at the 56th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia.

'Respiro', an installation by the influential conceptual artist Sarkis, will be presented in the Pavilion of Turkey at the 56th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia. The installation will be on exhibit at the biennale from 9 May through 22 November 2015. Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İstanbul Kültür Sanat Vakfı), the Pavilion of Turkey is curated by Defne Ayas and is located at Sale d’Armi, Arsenale, in the main venue of the biennale.

Respiro, an installation by the influential conceptual artist Sarkis, will be presented in the Pavilion of Turkey at the 56th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia. The installation will be on exhibit at the biennale to be held from 9 May through 22 November 2015. Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), the Pavilion of Turkey is curated by Defne Ayas and is located at Sale d’Armi, Arsenale, in the main venue of the biennale.  The artistic parameters of the Pavilion of Turkey at the 56th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia were announced at a press meeting on Tuesday, 10 February 2015 at Salon İKSV with the participation of artist Sarkis and curator Defne Ayas. İKSV General Director Görgün Taner and Corporate Communication Director of Tofaş Arzu Çolakoğlu on behalf of Fiat also participated in the meeting.  In his opening speech, İKSV General Director Görgün Taner stated “The International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia is a very important platform that brings artists from Turkey together with international audiences. This year, the Pavilion of Turkey presents a new project by internationally renowned conceptual artist Sarkis. Sarkis has been working in different mediums for over half a century and his works have been exhibited in the prominent art centres, exhibitions and museums all around the world. We are grateful and proud to be able to share his exciting project Respiro with the art world at the Pavilion of Turkey, which will be curated by Defne Ayas.”  The Corporate Communications Director of Tofaş Arzu Çolakoğlu delivered a speech on behalf of Fiat: “In addition to national economy, with the awareness of adding value, we are pleased to support various fields like sports or culture and arts, we are also glad to see Koç Group’s contribution and support to contemporary arts at la Biennale di Venezia. Hundreds of thousands of people visit la Biennale di Venezia, and every national pavilion, every artist and every artistic work take us to new dimensions, pushing the limits of our imagination. As the sponsor of the Pavilion of Turkey, this extraordinary effect is a source of pride for our country, for our brand Fiat and surely for our corporation, Tofaş. We believe that, under the curatorship of Defne Ayas, the works of Turkey’s esteemed contemporary artist Sarkis—whose successful works have met millions of art lovers around the world—will honour our country, by creating a tremendous impact at the Pavilion of Turkey at the 56th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia. As the Tofaş Family, we hereby thank İKSV and our invaluable artist Sarkis.” A prominent figure of the global art world with a career spanning more than five decades, Sarkis has been renowned for his oeuvre that embraces culturally diverse genealogies of art and history, and their innate relationship to memory and space. “In Respiro, I will be reaching out beyond geopolitics, to a more expansive context of a million plus years, going back to the creation of the universe and the beginning of time, back to the first-ever rainbow—the very first magical breaking point of light,” explained Sarkis during the press meeting, where he also detailed the exhibition plans using a whiteboard and markers. “Instead of binding ourselves to specific instances within the histories of politics, religion, philosophy, and the arts, we will be embracing contemporaneity of both the present and the distant past in our continued attempt to defy stagnation.”  Through the arrangements of objects, images, thoughts, and codes that are released from both personal and collective memories, Sarkis will use the site of the pavilion as a theatrical stage for the cast of his works to investigate the ideas of infinite dialogue and transformation that lie at the core of his practice. The exhibition titled Respiro, meaning breath in Italian, will present an installation of mirrors, stained-glass panes, and site-specific neon works, and will be complemented by a composition by Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi (b. 1971, Milan), based on the artist’s drawing of the rainbow’s seven colors as a system of partitions. “Few artists have combined artistic ingenuity with such a subtle critique of history as deftly as Sarkis,” commented Defne Ayas. “This undertaking opens up a space in which the potential of art will be reanimated. Against the current landscape of deep uncertainties, it is our intention to unfurl a proposition that reveals Sarkis’s profound concern for humanity. With and through his intense and perfectionist oeuvre—especially with his magnum opus in the making—and thanks to his rich arsenal of visual, architectural, and musical apparatus, we will be able to tune into hidden signals and frames encrypted in mediated images and visions; dig deeper into our contemporary lived experience; most likely hurt but also hopefully heal. The focus is the transformative power of art, as well as the timelessness and the timeliness of his oeuvre. I am grateful to him for not only accepting İKSV’s invitation this year but also inviting me to take on the project’s dramaturgy.” A new publication will accompany Sarkis’s Respiro. Conceived as a cross-referencing of Sarkis’s installation through key essays and short image readings, the book will include contributions by Ruben Arevshatyan, Uwe Fleckner, David Kazanjian, Wendy Meryem Kural Shaw, W. J. T. Mitchell, Aaron Schuster, and Jalal Toufic, amongst others. The volume edited by Defne Ayas, published by İKSV and designed by A Practice for Every Day Life, London will be available at the launch of the Pavilion of Turkey at the biennale and will be sold at select bookstores.  Two simultaneous installations by Sarkis will be opening on 7 May, one in Istanbul and one in Geneva, as to create a continuous dialogue with wider audiences. The 56th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia will run from 9 May through 22 November 2015, and will be curated by Okwui Enwezor.  The exhibition in the Pavilion of Turkey at la Biennale di Venezia is sponsored by Fiat, and realised under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, with the production support of Mehveş-Dalınç Arıburnu and SAHA Association. The Pavilion of Turkey, a dedicated long-term venue at the Arsenale, is an initiative of İKSV, also supported by the generous contribution of twenty-one sponsors.

 

BIOGRAPHIES   Sarkis  A graduate of Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Istanbul, Sarkis (b.1938, Istanbul) had his first exhibition at the Istanbul Art Gallery in 1960. Throughout his career, Sarkis has worked with various mediums, and has been, since the end of the 1960s, an icon of installation art in particular. His works have been exhibited worldwide in established art institutions, museums, and galleries, including the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris); the Guggenheim Museum (New York); the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Kunst-und-Ausstellungshalle (Bonn); the Louvre (Paris); the Bode Museum (Berlin); and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Sarkis was also part of When Attitudes Become Form: Works – Concepts – Processes – Situation – Information (Kunsthalle Bern, 1969), Documenta VI and VII (Kassel, 1977 and 1982), and the biennials of Sydney, Shanghai, São Paulo, Moscow, and Istanbul. Most recen tly, Sarkis has had solo shows at Galeri Manâ (Istanbul, 2013); ARTER (Istanbul, 2013); the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam, 2012); Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris, 2011 and 2014); MAMCO, Museum of Contemporary Art (Geneva, 2011); Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2010); and Istanbul Modern (2009). He has been living and working in Paris since 1964. He is represented by Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Bruxelles. Defne Ayas Defne Ayas is the Director and Curator at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam. During her directorship, Witte de With commissioned Dai Hanzhi: 5000 Artists (with UCCA, Beijing, 2014); Moderation(s) (with Spring, Hong Kong, 2012-2014); The Humans by Alexandre Singh – and its monthly Causeries (2012–2013); Tulkus 1880 to 2018 by Paola Pivi (with Castello di Rivoli and Arthub Asia, 2013–2018) as well as the award-winning exhibition The Temptation of AA Bronson (2013). Prior to this appointment, Ayas co-founded Arthub Asia, an Asia-wide production and research initiative, (2007–present), and Blind Dates Project, an artistic platform dedicated to tackling what remains of the people, places, and cultures that were once part of the Ottoman Empire. Since 2005, she has been a curator at Performa, the biennial of performance art in New York, where she remains a curator-at-large. In September 2012, Ayas co-curated the 11th edition of the Baltic Triennial of International Art. Ayas worked as the education and new media programs coordinator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York before attending the De Appel curatorial program in Amsterdam. She received her M.A. from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University in 2003, and a B.A. in Foreign Affairs in 1999. About Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) is a non-profit cultural institution that was founded in 1973. The general objectives of the Foundation are: to make Istanbul one of the world's foremost capitals of culture and the arts; to create continuous interaction between national and universal values, and traditional and contemporary values via culture and the arts, and to contribute actively to the development of cultural policies. With these objectives, İKSV organises the Istanbul Festivals of Music, Film, Theatre and Jazz, as well as the Istanbul Biennial, the Istanbul Design Biennial, autumn film week Filmekimi and other special events. The Foundation hosts cultural and artistic events at Salon located at the Nejat Eczacıbaşı Building. İKSV organises the Pavilion of Turkey at la Biennale di Venezia and coordinates an artist residency program at Cité International des Arts, France. İKSV also conducts studies and drafts reports with the aim of contributing to cultural policy development.

My East is Your West - 56° BIENNALE INTERNAZIONALE D'ARTE DI VENEZIA

 

Da una storia condivisa, un presente separato: sognamo un futuro comune

From a shared history, a divided present, we dream a common future

Feroze Gujral

La mostra My East is your West rappresenta un contributo significativo al programma degli Eventi Collaterali alla 56° Biennale d'Arte di Venezia, per la qualità delle opere esposte, per l'approccio sperimentale, per l'innovativo programma di eventi ad esso correlati e per il coinvolgimento di un'ampia regione del mondo in rapida espansione che non è mai stata rappresentata prima d'ora all'interno della Biennale veneziana.

Il contributo artistico del pakistano Rashid Rana e dell'indiana Shilpa Gupta, che per l'occasione realizzano opere site specific, si lega inscindibilmente con l'approccio critico del curatore Okwui Enwezor nell'ottica di "offrire al mondo una cassa di risonanza del mondo"; egli invita infatti a riflettere intorno al ruolo che le arti visive giocano nel rintracciare elementi di senso negli sconvolgimenti della nostra epoca: All the World's Future.

L'evento My East is Your West è ideato e curato da Feroze Gujral, Fondatore e Direttore di The Gujral Foundation, ha sede in India e rivolge il proprio impegno pioneristico e filantropico nel supporto delle arti contemporanee nell'Asia meridionale, con un sostegno rivolto alle iniziative internazionali. Il progetto si avvale della consulenza nella curatela di Natasha Ginwala, di Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta come Fondazione Partner in Italia e del Comitato Scientifico formato da Richard Armstrong, Direttore della Fondazione Museo Solomon R. Guggenheim e Amin Jaffer, Direttore Internazionale Arte Asiatica, Christie's. 

La mostra è corredata da una serie di eventi collaterali, a cura di Martina Mazzotta e Natasha Ginwala.

Il progetto nasce come un impulso utopico a ri-tracciare un complesso clima di relazioni storiche tra le due nazioni-stato sudasiatiche di India e Pakistan, nella forma di una mostra che dia voce a due artisti contemporanei eccezionali.

La recente assegnazione del Premio Nobel per la Pace alla pakistana Malala Yousafzai e all'indiano Kailash Satyarthi conferma che è possibile superare storici conflitti e che nei due paesi può ancora prevalere il dialogo.

In anni recenti, non sono mancate teorie che hanno predetto una sorta di fine della Storia; allo stesso tempo, nella nostra ossessione di analizzare il passato mentre viviamo nel presente, incontriamo inevitabilmente la misteriosa tendenza della Storia a ripetersi - come in un "eterno ritorno". Nel 1947, le nazioni-stato sudasiatiche di India e Pakistan intrapresero un percorso di contese e di scissioni, dopo aver sostenuto una comune storia di civilizzazione sviluppatasi per millenni. Mentre si giungeva all'assetto di oggi, si è verificato un simultaneo processo di cancellazione, segnato da un nazionalismo esplosivo promosso come prosecuzione della "chiamata alla libertà". Più di dodici milioni di persone sono migrate rapidamente tra un'India frammentata e le regioni in espansione ai suoi confini a est e a ovest, il neonato Pakistan e quello che sarebbe poi diventato il Bangladesh. Mai prima d'allora ne era conseguita un'ondata tanto massiccia di morti e di sfollati quale conseguenza della battaglia di decolonizzazione.

Gli artisti si chiedono: "Come possiamo immaginare una storia tanto intollerabile del subcontinente ripartito, oggi?". "Perché siamo fatti di linee...", osservava il filosofo francese Gilles Deleuze. L'immaginazione artistica travalica i confini degli stati-nazione per rivelare linee di volo che sorgono dalla prossimità culturale e sociale, da una lingua comune immersa in relazioni ancestrali di ospitalità. 

My East is your West invita gli artisti Shilpa Gupta di Mumbai (India) e Rashid Rana di Lahore (Pakistan) a dare forma a un duetto simbolico, lungo le linee condivise, o a un Jugalbandhi, come espresso nella musica classica induista. 

Questo caratteristico intreccio su di una piattaforma condivisa, a Venezia, è premessa delle preoccupazioni comuni ai due artisti intorno al tempo e all'impulso archivistico; così come lo è il loro occuparsi della "quotidianità" come deposito di cultura visuale e di coscienza collettiva. 

Con lavori che mettono in connessione ciò che si trova nella loro prossimità più immediata con alcune vivaci realtà intorno al globo, Gupta e Rana hanno sviluppato una estetica materiale che mette in discussione il moderno stato-nazione e le sue divisioni. 

Il punto di partenza della rassegna muove da due citazioni degli artisti, provenienti dai due lati del confine: "Come si chiamerebbe se oggi fosse un unico paese?" - Rashid Rana, artista, Pakistan; "Ora tu sei sulla linea dove ieri sera ho tracciato il confine. Ma poiché oggi piove, risulta un po' difficile vederla" - Shilpa Gupta, artista, India.

La mostra su India e Pakistan mira a configurarsi come "architettura della memoria" e a porre quesiti che muovono dall'antichità alla modernità coloniale, fino al presente conflittuale e cosmopolita del subcontinente. Qui, l'arte si esprime in forma narrativa, nella quale le perforazioni della Storia hanno evidenziato un abisso fondamentale.

OPERE DI RASHID RANA 

Rashid Rana afferma "Il mio lavoro è spesso una trattativa su tre fronti tra me stesso, il contesto fisico che mi circonda e quanto io ne ricevo - che siano Internet, i libri, la Storia o il sapere collettivo".

Il nuovo corpo di lavori di Rashid Rana affronta le stanze di Palazzo Benzon come un setting immersivo dove le strutture architettoniche si combinano con film, stampe, sculture e elementi ispirati a performance. Intessendoli insieme quali capitoli di una singola narrazione, l'artista passa dai suoi iconici fotomontaggi digitali su due dimensioni a un metodo topografico che prende in esame la percezione collettiva di collocamento e dislocazione. Partendo da una stanza che è allestita come facsimile o doppio, i visitatori sperimenteranno una perturbante sensazione di imersione in un "altrove".

Qui, l'uso tutto personale dei pixel da parte di Rana e il suo impegno nell'ampliamento di un archivio di immagini fotografiche e in movimento agiscono quali segnali dei frammenti contenuti in ciò che è universale.

Proseguendo, l'artista amplierà le sue Crowd Series (2013) su base stampata che creano insiemi di scatti documentari di raduni di massa intesi quale comune "palcoscenico pubblico". Una folla guidata verrà filmata in Pakistan e connessa mimeticamente con l'attuale inquietudine politica sulle strade di Islamabad, Lahore e Karachi. Tali sequenze filmate verranno allestite in mostra con proiezioni a grandezza naturale, spesso creando un cortocircuito tra recitazione e non-recitazione. Verranno inframmezzate rappresentazioni di notiziari e di reality-tv, di cinema-verità e di prospettive aeree. Attraverso ulteriori rispecchiamenti, attraverso le riprese in diretta di un campo a Venezia e la presenza di attori all'interno della sala espositiva, Rana concepirà una scenografia sfaccettata, chiamando in causa la nozione di "corpi in allineamento" e un archivio vivente quale carne del tempo.

L'intricato gioco dell'artista si muove tra sfaccettature di luoghi, non-luoghi e collocamenti e si riflette in una sorta di delirio di micro-narrazioni di luoghi specifici e di appartenenze transnazionali.

OPERE DI SHILPA GUPTA

I lavori di Shilpa Gupta a Palazzo Benzon proseguono nella linea di ricerca dell'artista intorno all'area di confine tra India e Bangladesh, presentando performance, stampe e sculture. L'artista esporrà lavori recenti che esaminano ampiamente il potenziale di re-immaginazione e di rifiuto attraverso narrazioni storiche.

1: 989.9.3,360 kms of fence under construction, East (2014-15) è un'installazione che si fonda su una performance che accompagnerà l'anteprima e l'inaugurazione della mostra. L'opera si basa sulla barriera in costruzione tra India Orientale e Bangladesh. Una volta completata, essa circonderà il Bangladesh e sarà la più lunga barriera di separazione del mondo. Nella performance, Gupta sincronizza la missione giornaliera di un soldato sul luogo in cui si erige questa barriera con quella di un performer seduto nella sala espositiva e intento a cucire una linea infinita su di un tessuto fatto a mano nel Bangladesh. Sistemato su di un lungo tavolo, il tessuto di 3,394 metri è il risultato di un lavoro di sei mesi svoltosi a Phulia, città di confine situata tra le due nazioni, nota per il commercio di telai fatti a mano, poi dislocati dopo la partizione del territorio.

In 24:00:01 (2012-14), l'artista presenta un'installazione cinetica che consiste di frammenti testuali composti su di un cartellone frammentato, una sorta di dispositivo per l'informazione obsoleto e tuttavia onnipresente, di quelli che si vedono in aeroporti e stazioni ferroviarie, il quale simbolizza le intersezioni tra lingua, migrazione e territorio. Il testo di Gupta è scritto in prima persona e proietta una tensione tra il "tempo reale" e il regno sperimentale della memoria personale. Di fatto, tutto ciò avviene trasformando una parte dello spazio espositivo in una sala d'attesa che traccia il nostro vivere quotidiano di transiti senza fine.

Nel suo lavoro Speaking Wall (2013-14), Gupta concepisce un'installazione sonora interattiva che conduce il visitatore verso specifiche traiettorie di movimento lungo uno stretto sentiero composto di mattoni. Attraverso l'uso dei sensi motori e del gioco di ruolo, l'artista crea una dimensione alientante che conduce a un complesso senso di non appartenenza, di divisione del suolo terreno. 

Gupta creerà inoltre un'installazione luminosa animata, intitolata My East is your West (2014-15), instaurando un dialogo con la facciata architettonica di Palazzo Benzon. Quest'opera intende riflettere sull'impatto che il condizionamento culturale e politico opera nell'orientare le nostre relazioni a seconda degli emisferi geografici. 

Coordinate mostra

Titolo mostra: My East is your West

Date: 5 Maggio - 31 Ottobre 2015

Sede: Palazzo Benzon, San Marco 3917, 30124 Venezia (http://www.locationvenice.com/)

Concetto e curatela: Feroze Gujral, Fondatore/Direttore, Gujral Foundation

Artisti: Rashid Rana (Pakistan) e Shilpa Gupta (India)

Consulente per la curatela e curatore programmi pubblici: Natasha Ginwala

Fondazione Partner in Italia: Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta

Comitato Scientifico: 

Richard Armstrong, Direttore della Fondazione Museo Solomon R. Guggenheim

Amin Jaffer, Direttore Internazionale Arte Asiatica, Christie's

Curatela eventi collaterali a Venezia: Martina Mazzotta e Natasha Ginwala

INFO PUBBLICO Palazzo Benzon - donatomariodonati@libero.it

Sig. Mario +39 347 2542070

Sig. Donato +39 335 5335938

Come arrivare: Vaporetto fermata S. Angelo