Shanghai and Venice Present: City Centre, Diankou, Lima, Palermo
Opening: May 31st, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Exhibition: June 1st to November 24th, 2013
Location: Gervasuti Foundation
Fondamento S. Ana (Via Garibaldi)
Castello 993/A-995, 30122, Venice
Arthub Asia and the Gervasuti Foundation are proud to announce the opening of Shanghai and Venice Present: City Centre, Diankou, Lima, Palermo, a project by Davide Quadrio, Qiu Zhijie and Fiona Biggiero. Three out of thirty prepresented at the Shanghai Biennale in the City Pavilions Project, under the theme Reactivation, have been invited to present a site-specific work at the Gervasuti Foundation on the occasion of the 55th Venice Biennale.
City Centre is a presentation concept that stands in direct contrast to the nationalistic perspective and representations found at the prestigious Venice Biennale. Cultural identities are presented under the category of urban centres rather than nations. The contemporary classification of ‘city’ reveals a complex multicultural context that goes beyond nationalization and demonstrates a new urban development and political geography.
City Centre literally denotes a centre that is composed of cities; a centre of cities, a hub of very different urban realities located within the domestic architectural setting of characteristic buildings that make up the Foundation in the area of Castello. The notion of ‘place’ is examined as much as the idea of ‘centre’ is questioned. Each of the artist’s work reflects its own central urban roots while responding to the host city’s cultural and social reality.
Diankou/The Society by curators collective Qiu Zhefeng and Song Zhen
Diankou is a small town in Jiangnan Zhejiang province that has a registered permanent resident population of less than 60,000. The city’s recent industrial and social economy is extraordinary for its size and geography. The Society is a curatorial project that reflects on the cultural ramifications of the city’s dynamic production and its new-found sense of place.
Lima/All the Republic in One (Ambiente De Estereorealidad #4) by artist José Carlos Martinat
All the Republic in One was a collaborative work with Enrique Mayorga; curated by Jorge Villacorta and José-Carlos Mariátegui.
This interactive installation is based on the creation of a database that focuses on categories that inter-operate with texts and images about Lima, showing how fresh information technology reveals a new socio-cultural dynamic.
Palermo/Wood #3 Hortus Simplicium, 2013 by artist Francesco De Grandi
This site-specific mural project has transformed the Gervasuti Foundation’s bar area with a work that plays with our sense of the perception of space by repositioning our references regarding the urban and rural environments that we live in. With the help of curators Laura Barreca and Valentine Bruschi from ArtHub Med, De Grandi has recreated the surrounding encircling vegetation with a fluorescent and illuminating trompe l’oeil in the Foundation’s courtyard.
Gervasuti Foundation
Established between London and Venice, the Gervasuti Foundation is a non-profit interdisciplinary and inter-institutional cultural platform. The Foundation’s mission is focused on an innovative Preservation Through Change Project, which aims to be both local and international: preserving the uniquely inventive and rich cultural traditions of Venetian history through the promotion and production of interdisciplinary practice.
Driven by a spirit of resistance, the Foundation aspires to set up research-based projects that will stimulate respectful use and development of context while, given the risks of global tourism, serving to avoid the inevitable loss of cultural memory. The Gervasuti Foundation’s commitment to this preservation of culture and reinvention through research makes them the perfect partner for the multi-disciplinary organization Arthub Asia. Similarly, both organizations collaborate with museums, as well as public and private institutions, to initiate and deliver ambitious art projects through a sustained dialogue with visual, performance and new media artists.
Project managers for Shanghai and Venice Present: City Centre, Diankou, Lima, Palermo are Francesca Girelli and Giorgia Mis.
Press inquiries: press@gervasutifoundation.org
