MANIFESTA 12 PALERMO / collateral
Sala Pompeiana of Teatro Massimo in Palermo
AES+F
MARE MEDITERRANEUM | Mediterranean Sea
Opening: 15. June 2018 | 12 pm
Edited by David Elliott
Organizing institution:
MAMM- Multimedia Art Museum Moscow
Olga Sviblova, Director
General partners: AVC Charity Foundation, Moscow;
Andrey Cheglakov, Founder, Fondazione Teatro Massimo, Palermo
Executive Producer: Elisabetta di Mambro
Exhibition: 16. June – 19. September 2018
http://aesf.art/news/mare-mediterraneum-exhibition/#all
https://www.manifesta12.org/
AES+F
MARE MEDITERRANEUM | Mediterranean Sea
16. June – 19. September 2018
The Mediterranean Sea is the reservoir of civilization – its heart has pumped people, cultures, and religions from shore to shore like blood. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians flowed north, the Romans and Crusaders south, the Genoese east, Byzantines west, the Islamic Caliphates east, west, north, and south. Sicily is right in the middle and the waves of all civilizations have splashed on her shores. This is still happening today.
The Mediterranean Sea is once again the epicenter of ideological contradiction. War has pushed refugees and migrants who, saving themselves, have floated and swum across it to confront Europe with a difficult choice. (In ancient myth Europa herself was also forced to cross this sea). Their choice has already led to politically charged and ideological confrontations, to the polarization of public opinion and to the rise of xenophobia and ethnic violence.
This tragic situation has become a political conflict as well as the subject of negotiation and ideological speculation. In this form it has been transmitted by media as a meme in what is now described as ‘post-truth’. The ethical situation that has unfolded out of this is paradoxical to say the least.
Making porcelain figurines on this subject could be thought an extreme manifestation of this paradox yet, through its distance, an artistic image may be more radical than reality itself because it can push conceptual limits.
Porcelain has always been a symbol of contentment and bourgeois comfort. The recent waves of migrations have confronted Europe with a dilemma: whether to accept refugees – allowing them to enter at the cost of the material and psychological comfort of their hosts; or to reject them in an immoral, inhumane, and cynical act that would undermine the co-operative ethical basis of Europe itself.
Comfort is both fallible and fragile, like the porcelain that is associated with it. Kept safe for generations in high places, porcelain figurines are attentively guarded but their fragility encapsulates the threat of instantaneous loss. They shatter easily.
The chosen form and material of these works contrast with the drama of what is unfolding in the Mediterranean today, and, by doing so, point to it. A reflected ray of light illuminates better than a direct one. We think that this holds true concerning this work.
Edited by David Elliott
Organizing institution:
Multimedia Art Museum Moscow (MAMM); Olga Sviblova, Director
General partners: AVC Charity Foundation, Moscow;
Andrey Cheglakov, Founder, Fondazione Teatro Massimo, Palermo
Executive Producer: Elisabetta di Mambro
Production partners:
Noirmontartproduction, Paris; Jerome de Noirmont, Founder
edm productions; Elisabetta di Mambro, Director
LK Porcelain Studio, Moscow; Lyudmila Kaminskaya, Owner
Barco Residential, Brussels.
Supported by:
Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation – Russian Seasons;
Institute of Italian Culture in Moscow, Olga Strada, Director
MARE MEDITERRANEUM
June 15th – September 19th, 2018 / Manifesta 12 Collateral Event,
Teatro Massimo, Palermo
http://www.teatromassimo.it/eng/
MANIFESTA 12 PALERMO
Opening and Preview Days:
15, 16 and 17 June 2018
14 June 2018 TV and Radio only
16.6. – 4.11.2018
Teatro Garibaldi
Via Teatro Garibaldi 46/56
90133 Palermo, Italy
https://www.manifesta12.org/
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