SELF festival

It’s LIQUID Group, in collaboration with International ArtExpo and Ca’ Zanardi, is pleased to announce the open call for the international art festival SELF and its experimental section LIQUID ROOMS. 

The festival SELF will be organized in Venice at Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi and Venice Art House, starting from the opening day of Venice Art Biennale, May 9, 2015, with a rich program of different events until November 2015. Artists, photographers, video makers and performers, will have the amazing opportunity to show their works to a huge audience, during  one of the most important period for the whole art world. 

SELF will be composed by collective and solo shows hosted at Ca’ Zanardi and Venice Art House gallery, and it will include the experimental program of exhibitions and art residencies LIQUID ROOMS. For the first time in Venice we will give audience the possibility to have private meetings with artists, to meet them personally and share their art and experience. 

The festival will include 11 events of photography, painting, video art, installation/sculpture and performance art, with a strong program of video art screenings and premiers, art residencies, talks, private meetings between artists and audience, live dj set, live experimental dance and art performances. 

The festival SELF and the experimental section LIQUID ROOMS are organized and curated by Luca Curci (director of It’s LIQUID and International ArtExpo) and Andrea Chinellato (director of Ca’ Zanardi and Venice Art House). 

The festival aims to conduct a 360° investigation about the SELF. The self is defined as the “being which is the source of consciousness; the agent responsible for an individual’s thoughts and actions; and/or the substantial nature of a person; the representation of one’s identity or the subject of experience”. After many years of research and exhibitions about the evolution of the idea of identity, we ask artists to share their personal tales through their artworks; to create a link between their personal experience and the audience through the artworks exhibited; to share their private tales and the reason beneath their work with the public. 

Each event of SELF festival will be focused on different themes: “WHY SELF – Adventures of social identities” (May 9-30, 2015); “PERSONAL TALES – Humans + Hybrids” (June 3-13, 2015); “SELF PORTRAITS – Inner Feelings” (June 17-27, 2015); “SELF IDENTITIES – Faces . Places . Spaces” (July 1-11, 2015); “FRACTAL IDENTITIES – Entropy . Disorders . Obsessions” (July 15-25, 2015); “SELF MEMORIES – The contemporary sense of awareness” (August 5-15, 2015); “FUTURE MEMORIES – Reconstruction of new identities” (August 18-29, 2015). 

LIQUID ROOMS experimental section is a mix between contemporary art shows and art residency. During LIQUID ROOMS events, artists will have the possibility to show their artworks and be hosted in Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi’s private rooms/apartments (accommodation included), or to take part in the collective shows hosted in the common area of Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi and in Venice Art House gallery. The different events of LIQUID ROOMS, included in SELF festival, will have a duration of three days and will be organized in May (9/10/11), July (10/11/12), September (4/5/6) and November (20/21/22) 2015. 

The first appointments of the festival will be:

– WHY SELF – Adventures of social identities, from the 9th to the 30th of May, 2015 at Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi and Venice Art House.

More information to apply: www.itsliquid.com/call-why-self-venice.html

– LIQUID ROOMS I – BORDERLESS, on May 9/10/11, 2015 at Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi and Venice Art House. More information to apply: www.itsliquid.com/call-liquid-rooms1-venice.html

To take part in the one or more events of SELF festival, send your works’ submissions with a CV/biography, some still images (for video-art), links of videos/performances, pictures of artworks via e-mail to lucacurci@lucacurci.com. 

Each event will present an exclusive selection of artworks, video screening program, intense live performances, with its own dedicated opening ceremony and PR campaign. At the end of the whole exhibition cycle there will be the publication of a catalogue. 

Artists interested in taking part in our shows, are free to be sponsored and supported by institutions, organizations, governments and their representers; the logos of their sponsors will be included in all the communication (digital and print) of the events. Artists are free to take part in one or more of the programmed events. 

It’s possible to organize dedicated exhibition and solo show in Venice Art House, Ca’ Zanardi and other available spaces we have in Venice. Please send us a project proposal to receive a quotation. 

Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi (Cannaregio 4132, Venice) is a residential palace dating back to the 16th century which, over the centuries, has been added on to by various noble Venetian families and is one of the most evocative and beautiful palaces in the city of Venice. Sumptuous and possessing particular charm, Ca’ Zanardi is located in a most peaceful setting and has its own delightful private garden as well as a magnificent terrace full of sun and colour. Ca’ Zanardi is located close to the Ca’ D’Oro, the splendid 15th century gothic palace along the Grand Canal.  It is easily reachable by foot, after a two minute walk from the Ca’ D’Oro water bus stop, or by boat using the palazzo’s private pier positioned along the fetching Santa Caterina canal. The refined elegance of the palazzo’s halls and common areas and the delicacy of its original 16th century furnishings create a fascinating setting. 

Venice Art House gallery is the new exhibition space of Ca’ Zanardi, located in Venice (Cannaregio 1863C), with a dimension of 250 sqm and two water entrances. The artist William Herod is the artistic director of the space. 

Starting from 2001, Luca Curci with International ArtExpo and It’s LIQUID Group, have curated and organized more than 80 contemporary art events, with the participation of about 2.500 international artists from all-over the world (UK, Spain, Italy, France, Austria, Portugal, The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Greece, Germany, Turkey, Poland, USA, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Israel, UAE, Russia, Thailand, etc.) with an average of 45 artworks exhibited in each show (with a maximum of 108 artists involved in the great MORPHOS festival held in Venice during the Architecture Biennale 2014). The organization has international partnerships with art venues in Italy, Turkey, USA, Spain, Argentina, UK, Middle East, etc., and collaborates with museums, galleries and institutions such as MuMo – Museum Montanelli in Prague, Laura Haber Gallery in Buenos Aires, MIXER gallery in Istanbul and MECA art center in Almeria. 

To take part in the one or more events of SELF festival, send your works’ submissions with a CV/biography, some still images (for video-art), links of videos/performances, pictures of artworks via e-mail to lucacurci@lucacurci.com.