Hic et nunc / Here and now
One-Night Screening: Wednesday, October 24, 6:30 pm
Curated by: Maurizio Marco Tozzi
In collaboration with LABottega - Marina di Pietrasanta - Italy
Hic et Nunc is a call on the individual to become aware of our course forward on Earth.
The seven women artists awaken through their videos the necessity of an essential change, one that’s stirred from deep within the self, but evolves outward in search of its role to effect.
The works raise an unfailing question that starts deep within our consciousness that the artists direct both to themselves and to the spectators. All this is reflected in each of us in different ways having to overcome the difficulties of defining the self while reaching for a more in-depth search. An introspection that reveals a path of change for which, sometimes before looking ahead, we must immerse ourselves in our heart, consciously re-placing ourselves in the external environment, focusing on the constant dystonia / harmony between the na- ture and the world of man.
Hic et Nunc is a deep and personal journey that invites us to rediscover ourselves through an analysis of the world we share, and how we can contribute to steering it back on course.
Angelica Bergamini - Will you fight or will you dance, 2012, 6.49
...despite all the noises produced by the outside world – it’s still possible
to hear a voice whispering an alternative choice: will you fight or will you dance?Will you fight or will you dance describes an inner journey of self-observation.
As tightrope walkers, we walk upon this path with carefulness, aware of each step. Aware of each breath. Because is the connection to our inhale and exhale that reminds us the possibility to respond rather than to react. Here arises the question for the viewer...
Angelica Bergamini is an Italian born – New York based artist. She studies at the Facultad de Bellas Artes of Granada (Spain) and at the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence (Italy). Bergamini’s research explores the meaning of colors in an open dialogue with human emotions and natural shapes, while her experimental approach manifests through different mediums: from painting and paper-cuts assemblages to video and sculptural installations. Her work has been presented internationally in solo and collective shows, and part of private collections in USA, Europe, China and Israel.
Sofia Bersanelli – Sotto il portico, 2015, 5.35
”It’s all about the wait... Inside the moment -which forerun the happening of some-
thing- it reigns a certain sense of wonder... know how to enjoy the expected!”
The young italian artist Sofia Bersanelli attended School of Visual Arts in New York and at the moment she’s studying at Brera’s academy. Most of her works are experimental and they are supported with a complex philosophical background. Her interest in literature brought her language in a poetical dimension. She beliefs that the composition of rhythm, sound and image is able to bring to the surface lost and yet structural experiences. Sofia is interested in new materials and new Scientific discoveries: she considers them a profound source of imagination. She participated to Codice Italia Academy exhibit curated by Vincenzo Trione at Pala- zzo Grimani, during the Venice Biennale 2015. She has shown her work in several gallery mostly curated by Omar Galliani. She collaborates with Artslife in which she owns a blog.
Rachel Frank - Rewilding Platte Clove, 2014, 4.51
Rewilding is an environmental practice that seeks to re-establish former ecosystems and increase sustainability by reintroducing species to areas where they had formerly thrived but have since gone extinct. As part of this on-going project,
I sculpted several bison head masks out of fabric and other materials. Focusing on “keystone species”, or species that have a crucial effect on the ecosystem, I use sculpture and performance to engage with the landscapes’ memory. These projects encourage people to envision what the landscape once looked like offering an alternative more sustainable future.
Currently based in Brooklyn, NY, Rachel Frank, works in sculpture, video and performance. Her performance pieces have been shown at HERE, Socrates Sculpture Park, and The Bushwick Starr in NYC, and at The Watermill Center in collaboration with Robert Wilson. Residencies include Yaddo, Marie Walsh Sharpe, The Museum of Arts and Design, the Innoko National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, MOCA Tucson, and The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Recent solo exhibitions include the SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Thomas Hunter Projects at Hunter College and at Standard Space in Sharon, CT. In 2018, her work was shown in “The Sentinels,” a two-person exhibition with Heidi Lau at Geary Contemporary.
Hope Ginsburg - Land Dive Team: Bay of Fundy, 2016, 7.08
In the video Land Dive Team: Bay of Fundy, four scuba divers sit in meditation at the shore of the bay, which has the highest tidal rise on the planet (up to fifty feet, twice a day). The divers sit resolutely, taking breath after breath as the tide flows in with fits and starts and rises on their (our) bodies until they disappear beneath the water. At the end of the piece, all that is visible are the divers’ exhalations, in small clusters of bubbles, hitting the surface of the water.
Each of Hope Ginsburg’s long-term projects build community around learning. Her work is by turns collaborative, cooperative, and participatory. These artworks are made with peers, students, scientists, and members of the public. Ginsburg
has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as MoMA PS1, MASS MoCA, Wexner Center for the Arts, Kunst-Werke Berlin, Contemporary Art Center Vilnius, Baltimore Museum of Art and SculptureCenter. She is the recipient of an Art Matters grant and a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship. Ginsburg has attended the Rauschenberg Residency, the Film/Video Studio Program at the Wexner Center for the Arts, and Skowhegan. Her work has been reviewed in publications such as Artforum, Hyperallergic, and The New York Times. Ginsburg’s work is currently on view in the inaugural exhibition at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU in Richmond, Virginia, which along with the Richmond Symphony has commissioned a new work for summer 2018.
Erika Lynne Hanson - Selenite Dunes (It Keeps Moving, But We Are Here), 2016, 5.15
Timothy Morton writes:
“Ecology is weird because it is the uncanny realisation that there were always al- ready other beings. Awareness of ecological beings – a meadow, a city, a coral reef, a microbe – is in a loop”.
This project explores strategies for establishing relationships between landscape and that which inhabit it (humans, gypsum crystals, wind, etc). The work utilizes site specific action, to propose a location for dialogue— for a non-anthropocentric social engagement. As a material foundation, handwoven flags serve symbolically as both marker of territory and representative object.
Erika Lynne Hanson is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and educator whose work is rooted in textile practices. Currently Assistant Professor of Fibers/Socially Engaged Practices at Arizona State University, Her work has been exhibited at spaces that range from Form + Concept in Santa Fe, to Field Projects in NYC, to the Tucson Museum of Art. Recent residencies in Iceland, Alaska, and Utah directly support ongoing projects that are proposing dialogues with the landscape.
Eleonora Manca - Vedersi visti (da qui, sottrai), 2018, 2.28
“The only true voyage...would be...to possess other eyes,to see the universe through
the eyes of another”. (Marcel Proust)
Seeing oneself seen (from here, subtract) is a reflection about the multifarious possi- bilities of perception. About the subtle difference between “seeing” and “watching”; about the process of seeing what surrounds us and every mutation of ours in a different way. An invitation to see ourselves in the act of seeing. Every perception is not a process taking place in our isolated brain, but is part of an unceasing metamorphosis connecting each thing to surrounding things and their reciprocal influences. Everything surrounding us is uncertain, being in constant change. Mutating means to make a detour from oneself. Against the stubborn idea that we are incapable to explore the shadows hiding the keys to unlock new ways of watch- ing, because we do not experience the existence of nothing outside ourselves unless through the involute relationship between signified and signifier that our brain, body, and memory assign it.
Eleonora Manca is a video artist, video performer and photographer. Each of her works are inspired by the power of metamorphosis and of the
memory of the body. She has exhibited in numerous festivals, in Italy and abroad. Lives and works in Torino (Italy).
Alberta Pellacani - Walk on water, 3’22”, 2016
Stains like green clouds in the horizon of the visual plane bow and move away like actors on the scene. The flow of palimpsests and natural traces of the territory, on the border with nature and civilization, melt in fragments as to the indefinite fragil- ity of men. The video is a phenomenological research on the immediate essence of the image. A method of inquiry like freedom and openness to the understanding of others’ will. The video is a visual examination practice that looks at the understanding of others’ will, full nature palimpsests and built sites, in constant dystonia / harmony.
Alberta Pellacani was born in Carpi (Modena) where she still lives and works. She graduates at Accademia delle Belle Arti and DAMS of Bologna, where she studies traditional and industrial techniques. Since the nineties she has been focusing her interests on the human being and his relationship with nature, using different me- dia: photo, video, documentaries, drawing and installations.
Maurizio Marco Tozzi is a curator of contemporary art. He has focused his research on the audiovisual language and the relationship between creativity and new technologies. He has a degree in Cinema and Image Electronics from the Univer- sity of Pisa (Italy), and a Master in Net Art and Digital Cultures from the Fine Art Academy of Carrara (Italy). He is the founder and director of Over The Real - International Festival of Video Art (GAMC Lorenzo Viani - Viareggio), and he has curated exhibitions in galleries and museums. He regularly takes part in lectures and talks about contemporary art. His last essays are: Gianni Melotti, art/tapes/22 video tape production (Giunti publisher, 2017), The Italian Video Art (Danilo Mon- tanari publisher, 2016), and Seamless Interaction with Works of Art published in Media Art Towards a New Definition of Arts in the Age of Technology (Gli Ori publisher, 2015). He teaches Theory and Method of Mass Media at the Alma Artis Academy of Pisa.
https://mauriziomarcotozzi.wordpress.com/
LABottega – Marina di Pietrasanta – Italy was founded in 1920 in Marina di Pietrasanta (Tuscany – Italy). There was a bit of everything: flour, oil, vegetables and even gasoline. A center where the life of the small town flowed. In 2011 LABottega is reborn as a LABoratory suitable for the contemporary world where art is the glue between tradition, hospitality, innovation and bond with the territory. A place where the tradition of cooking is linked in an organic whole, the hospitality of the rooms and the creativity of the LABoratory dedicated to Photography, which hosts important workshops, exhibitions and artist residencies.