"International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations OPEN2OO3 Art and the Cinematic Vision"
2003-08-27 until 2003-10-05
Arte Communications
Venice, , IT Italy

The sixth edition of the International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations OPEN2OO3 Art and the Cinematic Vision  takes place at Lido of Venice from the 27th of August to the 5th of October. The exhibit will run parallel to the 60th Mostra Internazionale di Arte Cinematografica of Venice. The works will be exhibited alongside the main streets, piazzas and major hotels of the Venetian island. OPEN was conceived by Paolo De Grandis, chairman of Arte Communications in 1998, including internationally recognized artists from Europe, Asia, the United States, and South America. In addition to the diversity of countries represented, OPEN has in past years included majors works of prestigious artists, such as Marisa Merz, Niki de Saint Phalle, Bernar Venet, Mimmo Rotella, Yoko Ono, Ju Ming, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Cesar, Arman, Beverly Pepper, Erik Dietman, Emilio Vedova, Jean-Pierre Raynaud, Carl Andre, Keith Haring, and Fabrizio Plessi.

The Chief Curator, in this edition, is the international critic Robert C. Morgan, afterwards the loss of the esteemed French Art Critic Pierre Restany, who gave his precious collaboration for the previous editions. As in the foregoing editions, Chang Tsong-zung, art critic from Hong Kong, will be co-curator for the Asian artists.

The exhibition is held in collaboration with the Cultural Councillor’s Office of the Venice Municipality and is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and by the Ministry of Estate and Cultural Affairs, in agreement with the support of Embassies of Foreign Countries, Venetian Region, Province of Venice and Municipality of Venice.

The participating artists for this years’ exhibition come from different cultural and artistic backgrounds as in the past. Thus, different contexts of seeing are revealed in their interactions with cinema. While many of the works exhibited in OPEN2OO3 are indirect in their connection with the film world, they all express visual concepts that suggest a temporal or sequential engagement with visual form and content.

Viewers may discover a curious interchange between artists who make movies and those who are professionally involved with cinema. For example performance artists, such as Nicola L. (France) and Made Wianta (Indonesia), reveal through their acting projects an original interpretation of the cinematic world. In contrast, well-known cinematic personalities such as Gina Lollobrigida (Italy) and Dennis Hopper (USA) have produced remarkably expressive figurative sculptures. Julian Schnabel (USA), famous international painter and sculptor has been working for many years in the film production. His career as a director is marked by the cinematic outcome "Basquiat" and by the Grand Jury Prize of the 57th International Cinema Festival of Venice-Lido for "Before Night Falls"

Last year, the list of exhibiting artists grew to include participants from Albania, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Indonesia, Israel, Korea, Latvia, Philippines, Romania, South Africa, Tunisia and Turkey. The sixth edition OPEN2OO3 hosts the first participation of Iran (Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Ahmad Nadalian), Russia (Olga Kisseleva) and Morocco, concerning the last one, the Moroccan artist, Fathiya Tahiri, found inspiration for her artistic expression in architectural forms, sculpture, paintings and woodwork; she does not simply build forms, she sculpts and folds the material.

Different context of seeing are revealed in their interactions with cinema. While many of the works exhibited in OPEN2OO3 are indirect in their connection with the film world, they express visuals concepts that suggest a temporal or sequential engagement with visual form and content.

The English artist Franko B., well-known for his performances, develops photographic images in new expressive directions. Other photographers such as Artur Gorishti (Alabania), Julie Monaco (Austria), Danilo Rojas (Colombia), Ville Lenkkeri (Finland), Ömer Uluç (Turkey) and Liina Siib (Estonia) use cinematic issues through the perfection of photographic images, presenting sequences of pictures that extend the interaction between the different features of the two visual spheres.

What OPEN2OO3 promises to bring is a unique occasion to think about installation not only as literal cinema but to consider the structural and associative fictions of cinema in terms of the subject matter of both conventional and radical materials. The static image can also function cinematically as in the works of Angel Orensanz (Spain), Gaetano K. Bodanza (Italy), Kuma (Japan), Skourtis Angelos (Greece), Youla Hadjigéorgiou (Cyprus), Soo-hong Lee (Korea), Ahmad Nadalian (Iran), Meira Yedidsion (Israel) and Hsiao Chang-jen (Guilin Yuzi Paradise, People's Republic of China), Ferruccio Gard (Italy) and Marie-Louise Ekman (Sweden); or moving images can be made through optical and digital animation as in the DVD films of Tan Kai Syng (Singapore), Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (Iran), Feng Mengbo (People’s Republic of China) and Federica Marangoni (Venice), who presents her homage to Pierre Restany with the sculptor Monica Nelting (Germany) in the special session.

Given the enormous differences between the cultural lives of these artists, there is also the commonality of the cinematic vision, a way of seeing images according to a framed sequence, even if the images themselves exist in a static form. It is the aspiration of the organizer, Arte Communications that OPEN2OO3 will continue the legacy and the dedication to a unique intercultural experience.

Arte Communications publishes the OPEN2OO3 catalogue, which will be distributed during the period of the exhibition. Together with the exhibited works, the catalogue collects texts of artists and curators, of the cultural personalities and the political authorities involved in this project.

IMAGE
Dennis Hopper
La Salsa Man

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Italy

Other Important Exhibitions in Italy