Press Release
The FUTURA centre for contemporary art cordially invites you to the exhibition
PROCESSING A MIRAGE
Opening: Tuesday November 24th 2009 at 6 p.m.
Exhibition dates: 25. 11. – 7. 2. 2010
Curator: Emanuela Nobile Mino
Participating artists: Wolfgang Berkowski, Igor Eškinja, Alberto Garutti, Krištof Kintera, Tracey Moffatt, Adrian Paci, Antonio Rovaldi, Marinella Senatore
Marshall McLuhan was one of the first to point out the connection between the media and the human sensory system, formulating the theory of a “media aesthetic.” He considered the media not just as neutral instruments to convey a message, but as a product of the mutation of our way of feeling and thinking, becoming themselves the real content of the message.
Art as representation provided the chance to explore the sphere that stands between the given and objective reality and the absolute reality, the spiritual one, the unknown.
It is assumed to be a shared territory, able to embody individual, oneiric and mental visions.
By concentrating on the unfixing and surprising effect of the representation process, “Processing a Mirage” reflects upon the tricky nature of the interactive relationship that is automatically created in the interaction between vision and perception, eye and mind, artwork and audience, reality and dream, substance and ghost.
The project, which involves artists of different national origin, age and art form, analyzes the idea of Mirage as a way of interpreting reality through the manipulation of existing data and considering, as the aim of the work, the attempt to provoke and change in the perception process, changing terms, components and the usual dictat of the vision.
Relating to The West's obsession with the individual ego and individual consciousness, and with the phenomenological and existential approaches to reality, which make the human mind the final arbiter of all knowledge and sensory data, the project aims to reflect on the possibility of art to trick the human mind (and eye) without the help of sophisticated technologies.
Looking at the international scene, a number of artists are adopting, in all different manners, this particular way of expression and art process, searching for a direct interaction between their own work and the audience (such as James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson, Anish Kapoor, Leandro Erlich, Thomas Demand, Urs Fisher, Fischli&Weiss, James Casebere, etc.), conceiving catchy eye-twisting and, at the same time, realistic iconographical set-ups, in order to give the present time another possible way of expansion - absolutely plausible - in a parallel meta-reality.
In all different ways, the involved artists’ work process, reflects this idea of using an art medium (photography, video, installation, sculpture) to create a sort of mirage.
The reading of a given reality assumes, in the works presented in the exhibition, a different process, as well as gives diverse sensory perceptions. The audience finds itself confronted with visual illusions (video, photographical, sound, sculptural) able to give the impression of looking at, or participating in, an alternate reality that supercedes the real (or the more logical) one. The audience then discovers, immediately afterwards, that it was given an additional and personal contribution to the reading of the work.
Art expression becomes a powerful vehicle to change the “perception at first glance” of reality and the issues of representation; dialectically illuminating the complex relationships between the virtual and the real, and creating a coalition of appearance and objective, and overcoming all the contradictions that naturally come out of this comparison.
ARTISTS
Wolfgang Berkowski
Salzkotten (Germany), 1960
In his work titled Prop 1 / Container and Prop 2 / Projector, Wolfgang Berkowski appropriates an old found photograph, originally used by Hand Peter Feldman. Due to its position and size, the spectator will be forced to recreate the position of a body depicted in the exhibited photograph. For the audience behind him, he will thus act out the content of the photo.
Igor Eskinja
Rijeka (Croatia) 1975
Illusionism and imitating process are at the center of the artist’s research, mainly addressed at overcoming the boundaries between the bi and tri dimensions. By changing the terms of use of drawing and architecture, he visually and practically transforms the flat into sculptural and the standing into ephemeral.
Alberto Garutti
Galbiate, LC (Italy) 1948
One of the most celebrated Italian artists and an influential teacher at Milan's Art Academy in Brera, Garutti contributes work represented by a series of photographic/performative works the artist realized in the ‘70s. The photos show different positions of the artist body in a given space, which changes its own peculiarities or the point of view each time, getting new perception of the space and of the human presence in it.
Krištof Kintera
Prague (CZ) 1973
Using basic elements and objects taken from everyday life and shifting them from their original context and use into a new, difficult or illogical reality, the artist creates new perspectives and unedited aesthetical assemblies, sometimes addressed to reinterpret art history and canonical visions, and sometimes referring to the “illusionary” potentialities of the technological progress.
Tracey Moffatt
Brisbane (Australia) 1960
Mixing up short cuts from old and more recent movies, the artist put together several scenes of love, fighting and destruction, artificially reproduced (thanks to the editing process) and reassembled. In her videos the climactic effect of the new sequences makes the audience forget about the fake and the artificial, and get involved in the evolving happenings, and in the fast and unsuspected transformation of one reality into its opposite.
Adrian Paci
Shkoder (Albania) 1969
This Albanian artist’s work deals with living circumstances, such as social inequality and migration. He’s present in the show with a video work revealing the boarding of a group of foreigners as a classical procedure, but revealing it to be a metaphor of the suspended state (both physical and social) of immigrant people.
Antonio Rovaldi
Parma (Italy) 1975
Shot and presented inside one of the huge spaces of the San Michele a Ripa (XVII century)in Rome, the two-channel installation presents on one side a baseball player launching in direction of all different fragile ceramic compositions, projected on the other side. The audience standing in the middle absorbs the tension of the launch, as well as the fear of being “physically” involved in the game.
Marinella Senatore
Cava dé Tirreni, SA, (Italy) 1977
This video artist creates environments very close the cinema process of setting the scenes. She builds sets in which the daylight as well as the movie atmosphere are artificially reproduced in the gallery space, maintaining the real look-like typical of the fiction
Year-round programme of FUTURA is supported by:
Magistrát hl. m. Prahy, MKČR
Acknowledgements:
Českoněmecký fond budoucnosti, Italský kulturní institutv Praze, Irmaitaliani, Galleria francesca kauffman, Milan; Galleria Paolo Maria Deanesi, Rovereto; Galleria Ugo Ferranti, Rome; Z2O Galleria | Sara Zanin, Rome; Galleria Monitor, Rome, Jiří Švestka Gallery
Main media partners:
Umělec, Flash Art, Radio Wave
Media support:
Artmap, Artyčok.tv, Radio 1
Technical equipment partner:
Samsung
Centrum pro současné umění
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