English version <http://www.plug-in.ch/invito/uccello_in_gabbia_cact_eng.htm>
Italian version <http://www.plug-in.ch/invito/uccello_in_gabbia_cact.htm>
On Saturday 18 June 2005, at 5:30 p.m., the CACT Centre of contemporary
Art in Canton Ticino in Bellinzona will host the inauguration of a
thematic exhibition entitled
LE VANITÀ DELL'UCCELLO IN GABBIA / THE VANITIES OF THE CAGED BIRD
Alex Hanimann, Federica Marangoni, Damir Niksic, Scott Treleaven
The title was inspired by an installation created by Alex Hanimann in
2004 for the Kunsthalle in St. Gallen, comprising an enormous birdcage
(made of wooden walls and netting) assembled inside the museum and
divided into four communicating sections, each in a colour of its own.
The cage contained canaries and other birds that were free to move
around as they chose between the various sections, probably encouraged
by the visual pleasure they took in the colours. Despite this apparent
freedom of movement, though, the birds were unfortunately caged.
It was this description that spawned some interesting thinking about
society, not just in the present day, and about the freedoms conceded to
man in relation to his visions and his own individual identity. Utopias
- the hope that our dreams will come true - are included in the universe
of the things we can describe as "vanities". But we are - unfortunately
- incapable of going beyond the netting.
The work by Alex Hanimann (Switzerland, 1955) presented here is one of
the videos (2003_2004) shot in the St. Gallen installation.
Federica Marangoni (Italy, 1940) is presenting installation works whose
outlines can be traced back to the special relationship between art and
architecture, summarised here as a sign in a space. F.M.'s works belong
to a larger project on a larger scale with the evocative and/or polemic
title of TOLERANCE-IN-TOLERANCE (2002-2005), which derives from the
assembly of a hundred images taken from everyday journalist reports and
completed by a series of object works with a particularly participatory
pertinence to the narrative, such as barbed wire, neon writing, sharp
materials like glass and other media that underscore the thematic
meaning of the work. By appropriating the more performance-oriented
aspects of art, F.M.'s work reflects the artist's considerable personal
expressiveness, advancing in parallel with it.
Anatomy of Exodus (2005) is a recent video work by the Chicago-based
artist Damir Niksic (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1970). Presented on a flat
screen, this video is a reflection on the interpretation of the concept
of Orient by the Occident and an evident critique of the false but
widespread idea of "Orientalism". Working against a black cross-hatched
background intended to refer to the first attempts made by Eadweard
Muybridge to approximate movement, using pioneering photography, D.N.
has filmed himself dressed as a nineteenth century Moslem. The
author/actor tackles an exodus, a departure from a reality hostile to
him and, despite walking long and continuously, his wanderings are in
vain.
Still very young, yet expressively and iconographically highly talented,
Scott Treleaven (Canada, 1972) is showing two video works THE SALiVATION
ARMY (2002) and Beastboy (2002). Already presented previously at
Art/35/Basel, in the Film section, THE SALiVATION ARMY is a video
narrative projected onto the screen that summarises brilliantly - with
skilled, coherent editing - the Queer Punk culture, which it interprets
intelligently and militantly.
Beastboy , in addition, is a work that turns out to be an almost silent
icon of a video; it represents man's metamorphic fusion with the animal
universe of the passions.
Psychedelic in approach and related to video clips, but also to the
practice of historical quotations, S.T. manages poetically to illustrate
some sometimes thorny topics with such poetry as to make the act of
watching extremely pleasant. Concealed behind an apparently cold, hard
hermeticism, S.T. expresses those mystical, visionary and
counter-culture aspects, attitudes of resistance and anarchy, that are
necessary for the world to be transformed into Utopia.
The exhibition is open to the public from Friday to Sunday, from 2:00 to
6:00 p.m. and will remain open until 14 August 2005.
(Translation: Pete Kercher)
CACTicino
CENTRO D'ARTE CONTEMPORANEA TICINO
Via Tamaro 3 - 6500 Bellinzona (Switzerland)
Phone +41 (0)91 825 40 72
www.cacticino.net
Supported By:
federal office for culture, migros percento culturale, city of
bellinzona, ernst göhner stiftung zug, farmacia nuova gordola, friends
of cacticino
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