FLU水O by Alessandro Sciarroni

Flu水o
A project by Alessandro Sciarroni
Curated by Davide Quadrio from a concept by Luciana Galliano and produced by Arthub (Shanghai/Hong Kong)

Winner of the Italian Council (9th edition 2020), program to promote Italian contemporary art in the world by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism

Arthub is pleased to announced to be among the winners of the 9th edition of the Italian Council with Flu水o a project by Alessandro Sciarroni curated by Davide Quadrio from a concept by Luciana Galliano and produced by Arthub (Shanghai) in collaboration with MAN_Museo d’Arte della Provincia di Nuoro (Nuoro, Italy); Fondazione Pirelli HangarBicocca (Milan, Italy); Ramdom (Puglia, Italy); Gaswork & Triangle Network (London, UK); n+n Corsino – Scene 44 (Marseille, France); Ming Contemporary Art Museum (Shanghai, China).

“Flu水o” stems from the need to put into perspective with the stories of our day with a specific and significant moment in the history of art – the pre-Fluxus period in Japan. “Flu水o”’s main subject is water in its full poetic power, indispensable element of life, and of pressing topicality. In its complexity and articulation – a residency, a workshop, six performances and a concert, an exhibition, three screenings, four talks – the project develops between Marseille, where the work will be produced, and the Ming Contemporary Art Museum in Shanghai, where it will be exhibited, passing through HangarBicocca in Milan, where the live work will be presented in its entirety. The final work, which consists of a four-channel video installation of the performances filmed, in dialogue with the stage elements previously produced during the residency period in Marseille – will enter in the MAN in Nuoro.

A video boxset accompanied by images and texts contributed by the artist and other involved scholars, will be the instrument through the project, which will be disseminated nationally and internationally. The video will be screened in the partners’ venues, including n + n Corsino Scene 44, Gasworks & Triangle Network, and Ramdom, – followed by a series of talks at the presence of the artist and the curator who will enhance different aspects.

When my dear and esteemed friend Davide Quadrio asked me to think of re-enactments of great performances from the Sixties, and in particular of works by non-Western artists belonging to that visionary and original group of artists that was Fluxus, I immediately thought of the beautiful performances about water of the poetic Shiomi Mieko, the original Ono Yōko, the great Nam June Paik et al., in which the living presence of water becomes life, purity, poetry.

And immediately another image appeared to me: seawater, once again a place of life, regeneration, myths but recently more often a threatening and deadly place for the many people who try to cross it. Water, which innervates life, the subject of ferocious wars although inconspicuous is, in the form of the sea, the epitome of the epochal phenomenon of the migration of people whose lives have been disfigured and destroyed by the tides of Western capitalism (wars, desertification, control from abroad of the market).

So I designed an event that combines the special approach to water due to non-Western Fluxus artists – with their strong anti-capitalist belief and their nomadic and transnational soul, protagonists of the first truly global art movement in history – with the work camera Mare Nostrum – Discovery, liberation, and conversion of the Mediterranean Sea by an Amazonian tribe, libretto and music by Mauricio Kagel (Buenos Aires 1931 – Cologne 2008) who in the first half of the 1970s sarcastically rethinks, from the point of view of an exile (Kagel left Argentina in 1957), precisely the Mare Nostrum. The massacre of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea was not yet in progress, but it was clear to him the crossings of settlers and migrants, the absolute relativity of every value and concept, and at the same time the relationships of power, curiosity, and oppression that mark the relationship with the Other. It is a caustic, very lively, musically precious work – which I saw at the last (only?) Italian performance for the 2005 Biennale Musica under the direction of Kagel himself.

I believe that in ‘Flu 水 o’, in the beauty and depth of the aesthetic experience, it is clear the position of key questions, both for artists and for the public, on the relationships, the present, and sound.

Credits:
Concept by: Luciana Galliano
Curated by: Davide Quadrio
Film by: Ho Tzu Nyen
Conductor: Arnaud Arbet
Directed by: Alessandro Sciarroni
Scenography and costumes by: Andrea Anastasio
Counter Tenor: Kai Wessel
Baritone: Miljenko Turk
Ensemble: Bernasconi with Elena Casoli, guitar, and Yuka Ohta, percussions.
Piano rehearsal: Kyoko Nojima
Producer: Arthub
Coordination and communication: Ramdom

Project’s Partners:
Associazione Ramdom, Gagliano del Capo
Associazione DANSE 34, PRODUCTIONS, Marseille (France)
Ming Contemporary Art Museum – McaM, Shanghai (China)

Museum of Destination:
MAN – Museo d’Arte della Provincia di Nuoro

Cultural Partners:
Gasworks & Triangle Network (London, UK)
Fondazione Pirelli HangarBicocca (Milan, Italy)

Realized thanks to the support of:
Italian Council (9th edition 2020) – Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism

Arthub is a Shanghai based and Hong Kong registered not-for-profit platform devoted to contemporary art creation and diffusion.
Arthub (born in 2007 as Arthub Asia), stemmed from the desire of exploring and experimenting with the possibilities of collaborative platforms. It took off at a time of urgency, when Chinese contemporary artistic practices had a short history of structural development and faced contradictions and problems of “translation,” especially in regards to methodologies of research within the Chinese and Asian context at large.
Acting as a transcultural mediator, Arthub orchestrates collaborations between Asian and overseas artists and institutions through the production of artworks, exhibitions, publications and educational activities.
In this capacity, Arthub Asia is a proxy, an experiment that aims to connect likeminded local and global creative people, pooling at the same time some degree of authority on the Asian visual art spectrum.
WEBSITE
www.arthubasia.org

Alessandro Sciarroni is an Italian artist active in the field of Performing Arts with several years of experience in visual arts and theater research. His works are featured in contemporary dance and theater festivals, museums and art galleries, as well as in unconventional spaces and involve professionals from different disciplines. In 2019 he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Dance by the Venice Biennial.
SITO WEB
www.alessandrosciarroni.it

What is the Italian Council?
Italian Council is the programme by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism for the support, promotion, and enhancement of contemporary Italian art in the world.
WEBSITE
www.aap.beniculturali.it/italiancouncil_r.html