An international jury of scholars and critics of contemporary art has awarded the Lorenzo il Magnifico Prize to Spanish born and New York based artist Angel
Orensanz at the Florence International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Florence, Italy. The Biennial opened December 3 and presented the work of more than five
hundred artists from thirty-one countries.
In the pavillion's interior, Angel Orensanz exhibited over two hundred bronzes arranged in a forest like formation of body parts and charred small landscapes.
Outside the exhibition pavilion, he placed a city bus that was transformed into an antiwar installation art manifesto. The top of the bus is filled with suitcases in various
states of use and disuse that serve as a chilling reminder of the displacement and occupation of various regions in the world. The interior of the bus is filled with a
galaxy of chiming bronze sculptures and with large pictures of a movable installation (The Shattered Tent) that Orensanz has created on the refugee crisis in Kosovo,
East Timor and Chechnya.
Over the last year, Angel Orensanz has installed The Shattered Tent in multiple locations in Europe and the United States. He first presented it in March 1999 in front
of the European Parliament in Strasbourg (France) and then moved it to Geneva (Switzerland), Brussels (Belgium) and finally to the front of New York's United
Nations building.
The Peace Bus, as the press named it, will remain on view in Florence under the auspices of that City's Department of Transportation and will soon be included in the
permanent collection of Florence's future Museum of Transportation.
The members of the jury were: Dr. Veronika Birke, Deputy Director of the Graphische Sammlung, Albertina, Vienna, Austria; Dr. Guy Cogeval, Director of the
National Museum of French Monuments, Paris, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal; Prof. Paolo Levi, Turin; Prof. Stefano Francolini, Director of the Davanzati
Museum, Florence; Prof. Francis Nauman, New York; and Prof. Teresa Ortega Coca; University of Valladolid Spain.
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