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Carnal, issue 0 of Parterre de Rois
A new magazine in Milandate: 18-07-2013
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Interview with Nicola Toffolini
A worlds inventordate: 24-04-2011
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Donne senza uomini.
Installazione multimediale di Shirin Neshatdate: 01-03-2011
Arte Laguna Award in Venice until April 6 at Nappe, Telecom Future Centre and Istituto Romeno
110 selected artists on show in five sections plus the under 25 and the architecture special ones
Venice hosts the 8th edition of the Premio Arte Laguna, open every day until April 6 (from 10 am to 6 pm), crucial for its unique role in Italy and in the Lagoon. Curated by Igor Efrem Zanti, it is deploying on three stunning venues: the Nappe (Arsenale Novissimo), the Telecom Future Centre close to Rialto and the Istituto Romeno at Cannaregio. 110 selected artists and their 870 artworks are grouped in 5 sections: one for each - painting, sculpture, video art, photo art and virtual/digital art – has been awarded with Euro 7000 on Saturday March 22nd, complimented by thousand of people crowding the opening ceremony at the Nappe and the following dinner party at new venue of IED Venezia at Palazzo Franchetti, one of the partners of the Prize (now managed by the curator and journalist Zanti who was hosting the guests in double role. As curator and as director).
The 2014 edition has been special, according to the words of one of the two founders, Ms Beatrice Susa once welcoming the authorities and the countless art lovers at the Nappe: it is able to secure even more the strong relation of the Prize with its city, Venice and, then, the jury of this year worked even better than the previous one, if possible. Among the selected ones, chaired by Zanti, this year there is Andrea Viliani (actual director of Museo Madre, Naples), Victoria Lu (artistic director of Contemporary Art Museum, Taiwan), Miguel Amado (curator of Portugal Pavilion, 55th Venice Art Biennale: the Tago river commuters’ boat dressed again by the artist Joana Vasconcelos and moored outside the Giardini), Jonathan Watkins (Ikon Gallery, UK).
Differences and continuity, according to Susa’s welcoming speech: the firsts are less residencies with more curated partners (beside the money prizes of Euro 7000 per section, artists are awarded also with special residencies programs: among the new entries two very good companions as Abate Zanetti Glass School and Miramarmi); the second are the stronger relations with city institutions as TFC (Telecom Future Centre) that also awarded with a new section the artist who was better able to design a new and innovative strategy to implement visits to its venue (two stunning San San Salvador cloisters). The 5000 euro Prize has been awarded to young architect Nicola Simion and two special mentions have been appointed to Patrizia Facchinetti and Maria Grazia Schmidhauser for their amusing Salotto Impertinente. Then there is Istituto Romeno di Cultura, hosting the Under 25 section, opened yesterday at 4.30 pm, that also gives unexpected surprises (among these, a new Italian name on which keep a close eye, the young carver from Vaprio D’Adda Gabriele Dartizio).
We found strong and convincing the work of the jury on almost all the Prize sections, especially on the winner of the Video and Performance section, the Kenyan artist Apiyo Amolo (she tells her personal and touching story in a video of 2.5 minutes; after the divorce from her Swiss husband she has been threated by new and harsher immigration rules). And especially on the winner of the not easy to select Sculpture Award: the 1970 Ireland born Elaine Byrne who works on memory and its primary colours, on the rational forms starting from the quotation of a work by Federico Kiesler. We like much less the Jury award in Photography section that is always the best of the Prize (winners are appointed only by choosing among the selected artists on show: a very restricted portion of the countless applications the Jury receives each year, given that the call for entries is translated and widespread in 14 languages thanks to 54 partners, as galleries, working in their respective countries to help the Prize diffusion).
The awarded artist of the Photo Art Section (juror members Claudia Zanfi and Sabrina Van Der Ley) has been Victoria Campillo, Spain, 1957 with a composit of scarce formal value (after her, few special mentions with no award). This work is not respecting the higher quality of the finalists and its captioning form is not awarding neither the contents neither the vision of what is really on show. More, it is not at all translating what is “art through the medium of photography” that seems to us the mission of this section (if, again, we look at this awarded work with an eye also on the beautiful and not awarded others).
The Premio Arte Laguna will offer two talks on free entrance (as the entire show), always host in its main venue (the Nappe of Arsenale Novissimo): on Saturday March 29 (at 2.30 pm) the topic will be the industrial warehouses and their reuse; on Saturday April 5, same hour, Il mercato dell’arte in tempo di crisi about the commercial aspects of art market in the current times of economic crisis. The first is very actual given that the Arsenale has been recently given to the Council (local government) from the central authority owning it since decades.
