OPEN
15. International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations
30.08 - 30.09 2012 Venice Lido, San Servolo Island
OPEN, the International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations, will celebrate its fifteenth edition from 30 August to 30 September at Venice Lido and on the island of San Servolo, at the same time as the Venice Film Festival and the Venice Biennale.
Conceived and curated by Paolo De Grandis, co-curated by Carlotta Scarpa, the exhibition is organised by Arte Communications in collaboration with the Department of Culture of the Venice City Council.
The fifteenth edition of OPEN will feature two special projects that will interact with each other through the strong visual and material impact of sculpture and the lightness of the fabric of flags. Among the items presented will be steel sculptures, enormous reflecting forms, by the Korean artist Lim Dong-Lak coordinated by Grace Rim, and the flags by international artists, especially the project "IT'S TIME FOR ACTION" by Yoko Ono, curated by Jon Hendricks, which can be seen at S. Maria Elisabetta.
The flags recall a unique, extraordinarily scenic event: in 2002 Paolo De Grandis was European commissioner for the Flag Art Festival in Seoul on the occasion of the FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan. Ten years later, thousands of standards, banners, scrolls, the art and literature of the whole world captured in signs and entrusted to the wind direct and inspire the path of OPEN.
More than thirty artists will tackle this unusual format to present unprecedented interpretations and readings of their art: as well as the special project by Yoko Ono, the flags on show at Lido will be the work of Davide Aghayan, Ronni Ahmmed, Chiara Bugatti, Gaylord Chan, Lui Chun-kwong, Venia Bechrakis, Dahong Liu, Efi Halivopoulou, Mahedi Anjuman Joothi, Hoi-lam Au, Shakhawat Hossain Razib, Ursula Huber, Nora Iniesta, Fotini Kariotaki, Maria Kompatsiari, Lindy Lee, Yang Mian, Yousef Moscatello, Artemis Potamianou, Fernando Reyes, Daniel Rothbart, Virginia Ryan, Aspa Savidi and Anita Sieff. Parallel to this path, where steel and fabric take possession of land and sky, creating a bizarre vertical axis that follows the Lido streets, OPEN will present works by Andreas Kuhnlein, Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh and Jia Liu, dedicating the usual attention to sculpture in its most varied and innovative forms.
Young artists from Thessaloniki University, curated by Christos Savvidis, will present a site-specific, interactive project on the Island of San Servolo, the location which for five years has hosted promising young artists, involving the Departments of Art, Architecture, Theatre and Cinema.
The attention towards new recruits to art is also seen in the collaboration with the Arte Laguna Prize, under which the Arte Communications Prize was assigned to Lia Wei and Zhang Qiang; this award will offer the possibility to the two artists to participate to fifteenth edition of Open. During the exhibition the third edition of Arte Laguna Special Prize will be assigned to an artist from the University of Thessaloníki, selected by the Arte Laguna jury.
Original, versatile and innovative, OPEN has a long history which has involved the participation of more than seventy countries, four hundred artists and one hundred and fifty internationally renowned curators; for as many as ten artists it has provided a privileged platform and an important launching pad for their subsequent participation in the Venice Biennale.
OPEN creates synergies and collaborations such as those between international curators: presences that have been renewed and repeated over the years such as Nevia Capello, Johnson Chang, Jon Hendricks, Ebadur Rahman, Christos Savvidis, Gloria Vallese and, for this fifteenth edition, the new participants Grace Rim and Lv Peng.
Ever since the review began in 1998, while becoming one of the main events on the Venetian exhibition calendar at national and international level, finding considerable success with critics, the public and operators in the sector, OPEN has enjoyed the patronage of the following bodies: the Italian Ministry of the Cultural Heritage, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Embassies of the participating countries, the Veneto Region, the Province of Venice and Venice City Council. The last ten editions of OPEN have been awarded the Silver Shield of the President of the Republic, in recognition of the commitment of the organizers and of the event’s high cultural value.
The fifteenth edition of OPEN will feature two special projects that will interact with each other through the strong visual and material impact of sculpture and the lightness of the fabric of flags. Among the items presented will be steel sculptures, enormous reflecting forms, by the Korean artist Lim Dong-Lak coordinated by Grace Rim, and the flags by international artists, especially the project "IT'S TIME FOR ACTION" by Yoko Ono, curated by Jon Hendricks, which can be seen at S. Maria Elisabetta.
The flags recall a unique, extraordinarily scenic event: in 2002 Paolo De Grandis was European commissioner for the Flag Art Festival in Seoul on the occasion of the FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan. Ten years later, thousands of standards, banners, scrolls, the art and literature of the whole world captured in signs and entrusted to the wind direct and inspire the path of OPEN.
More than thirty artists will tackle this unusual format to present unprecedented interpretations and readings of their art: as well as the special project by Yoko Ono, the flags on show at Lido will be the work of Davide Aghayan, Ronni Ahmmed, Chiara Bugatti, Gaylord Chan, Lui Chun-kwong, Venia Bechrakis, Dahong Liu, Efi Halivopoulou, Mahedi Anjuman Joothi, Hoi-lam Au, Shakhawat Hossain Razib, Ursula Huber, Nora Iniesta, Fotini Kariotaki, Maria Kompatsiari, Lindy Lee, Yang Mian, Yousef Moscatello, Artemis Potamianou, Fernando Reyes, Daniel Rothbart, Virginia Ryan, Aspa Savidi and Anita Sieff. Parallel to this path, where steel and fabric take possession of land and sky, creating a bizarre vertical axis that follows the Lido streets, OPEN will present works by Andreas Kuhnlein, Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh and Jia Liu, dedicating the usual attention to sculpture in its most varied and innovative forms.
Young artists from Thessaloniki University, curated by Christos Savvidis, will present a site-specific, interactive project on the Island of San Servolo, the location which for five years has hosted promising young artists, involving the Departments of Art, Architecture, Theatre and Cinema.
The attention towards new recruits to art is also seen in the collaboration with the Arte Laguna Prize, under which the Arte Communications Prize was assigned to Lia Wei and Zhang Qiang; this award will offer the possibility to the two artists to participate to fifteenth edition of Open. During the exhibition the third edition of Arte Laguna Special Prize will be assigned to an artist from the University of Thessaloníki, selected by the Arte Laguna jury.
Original, versatile and innovative, OPEN has a long history which has involved the participation of more than seventy countries, four hundred artists and one hundred and fifty internationally renowned curators; for as many as ten artists it has provided a privileged platform and an important launching pad for their subsequent participation in the Venice Biennale.
OPEN creates synergies and collaborations such as those between international curators: presences that have been renewed and repeated over the years such as Nevia Capello, Johnson Chang, Jon Hendricks, Ebadur Rahman, Christos Savvidis, Gloria Vallese and, for this fifteenth edition, the new participants Grace Rim and Lv Peng.
Ever since the review began in 1998, while becoming one of the main events on the Venetian exhibition calendar at national and international level, finding considerable success with critics, the public and operators in the sector, OPEN has enjoyed the patronage of the following bodies: the Italian Ministry of the Cultural Heritage, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Embassies of the participating countries, the Veneto Region, the Province of Venice and Venice City Council. The last ten editions of OPEN have been awarded the Silver Shield of the President of the Republic, in recognition of the commitment of the organizers and of the event’s high cultural value.
