Catalonia in Venice_To lose your head (idols)

“Catalonia in Venice_To lose your head (idols)”. Photo: Pedro Azara

Commissioned and produced by the Institut Ramon Llull, the public institution that promotes Catalan Language and Culture abroad, Catalonia in Venice_To lose your head (idols) is a multi-authored exhibition curated by Pedro Azara with the artist and performer Marcel Borràs. 

The exhibition explores the theory of art reception and documents the complex life of statues that have evoked physical reactions, both passionate and outraged. In a world of images, iconoclasm and iconodulia are ways for reality and power to relate to each other. The exhibition questions the fetishism of images as living entities that encourage powerful conversations as a way to foster human happiness or exasperation. 

Supported by four main pillars (a performance by Marcel Borràs, video works, an artist's book and an archive), Catalonia in Venice_To lose your head (idols) will also have on display 20th-century naturalistic statues, which have evoked physical reactions, both positive and negative. The visitors will be able to face them, inside and outside the pavilion, and to experience how to approach them...beware of the statues. 

David Bestué, Lúa Coderch, Lola Lasurt, Daniela Ortiz, Perejaume and Francesc Torres, visual artists, essayists and poets will explore the issue of art reception in an artist's book and edited by Editorial Tenov.

Marcel Borràs with Albert García-Alzórriz and the participation of David Bestué, Lúa Coderch, Lola Lasurt, Daniela Ortiz, Perejaume and Francesc Torres

Curator: Pedro Azara

Commissioner: Institut Ramon Llul

Location: Arsenale Docks, Fondamenta Quintvalle, Castello 40