At the present moment, Venice is in the spotlight of the entire art world. With the prestigious Biennale di Venezia gearing up to open with a preview on June 1, curated by Bice Curiger and hosting a record of 89 countries this year, numerous are the contemporary art exhibitions and events taking place in the Italian city coinciding with the Biennale dates. Among them, the cultural association Artlife for the World has put up the group show Mapping, the eighth and last exhibition in the Markersproject series in honor of the Venice Biennale 2011, which is opening on June 1 as well.
An itinerant art project curated by Doron Polak and Amir Cohen, Mapping brings together 66 artists from around the world, and deals with a topic usually associated with cartography; namely, a map is a compilation of agreed upon symbols that describe ideas. The artists participating in this exhibition have mapped their personal or social experiences, linked to the culture to which they belong. Featured in the collective show is the work of Angel Orensanz The Abyss of the Gulf (2010), a photo of one of his seminal public art installations.
Having performed and exhibited previously in Italy with highly acclaimed installations, Angel Orensanz has an special attachment with the richly cultural city of Venice, where in 2001 he initiated a key performance intervention that involved the rolling transportation of an enormous semi-transparent plastic sphere throughout emblematic Venetian spots. While this and other series of works from the last two decades were more committed to multiculturalism and pacifism, with The Abbys of the Gulf and its related photo piece presented at Mapping,Orensanz tackled and reacted to a specific human and environmental catastrophic event occurred at the Gulf of Mexico, a tragic contamination and infection of the seacoasts. Last August, in a large tract of urban space in New York, close to his studio Foundation in the Lower East Side, the artist enacted a vision and dramatization of the apocalypse in the Gulf of Mexico through a sculptural, textile and video construction. Miles and miles of wreckage and debris filled the expansive yard where he unfolded his take on a continental catastrophe that is not explained but metaphorically reenacted.
The Angel Orensanz Foundation proudly presents and invites the public to visit the group exhibition Mapping at Artlife for the World gallery, curated by Donor Polak and Amir Cohen and initiated by the International Artists’ Museum and 972ARTT. It is part of the project Markers, which has organized a wide range of successful exhibitions that have traveled to New York, Berlin, Lodz, Edinburgh, and more.
Mapping (Mappe) – Markers (Segni)
1 June – 28 July 2011
Artlife for the World – eventi d’arte contemporanea
Art Director: Simonetta Gorreri
Cannaregio 6021
Venezia 30121 Italy
+39 041 5209723
artlifefortheworld@libero.it
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