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Hafnia Foundation is pleased to announce its participation in the upcoming

Curitiba International Bienal

We will present a new series of unique works by Stevens Vaughn, from September 30, 2017 to February 25, 2018, in Curitiba (Brasil). 

BIENAL DE CURITIBA 2017

 

presents

 

Antítese Imagens Síntese (Antithesis images synthesis)

 

works of:

 

Luiz Brugnera, Angela Lima, Juan Parada and Jairo Valdati (Brasil); Shay Frisch (Israel); Joachim K. Silue (Ivory Coast); Hannu Palosuo and Tuomo Rosenlund & Johanna Pohjanvirta (Finland), Marco Bolognesi, Davide Boriani and Antonio Riello (Italy); Taiji Terasaki and Stevens Vaughn (USA).

 

by

MASSIMO SCARINGELLA

 

From 30th September 2017 to 25th February 2018

MON - Museu Oscar Niemeyer

MEMORIAL de Curitiba

Curitiba – BRASIL

 

On 30th September 2017 the Bienal de Curitiba 2017 opens in different places of the city, the biggest contemporary art event set in Latin America, carried out by the Ministry of Culture of Brasil (MinC), by the Government and the Municipality of Curitiba.

 

  • The Biennal

The Biennal of Curitiba 2017 is entitled "Antipodes - Excess image" and it intends to show the "Diversity" or "the Opposites ", topics for consideration of this edition, they represent “not just a limit among the means of artistic expression but even a limit among cultures. Limits that are never definitive, where outward and return, plural meetings and sinergies created by the comparison of different, distant points of view, even against the others meet. According to Deleuze: transversality realizes unifying the differences" (quote Ticio Escobar).

 

  • Curatorial project

In the wake of the general project Massimo Scaringella has curated a section entitled: Antítese Imagens Síntese (Antithesis images synthesis) asking to the proposed artists the realization of specific work.

 

According to Hegel, reality is rational precisely because it is contradictory and the reason of the task is to overcome these contradictions, solving them through the synthesis at a higher level, that will be in turn the starting point for further contradictions that need to be overcome, and so on ad infinitum. The contemporary artist increasingly goes beyond the appearance, beyond the object of his story, creating a contraposition between the reflections of the one who has conceived it and the emotions of who is looking at it. What has changed in the one who has thought it and what will change in the one who will observe it, because those looking “over the vision” find out an ever- changing thought and action evolving. He looks beyond the object and the color, in the memory of his thoughts that relieve of the unneeded towards the awareness.

 

This corresponds to the production of new and plural artistic languages, from photography to video art, from land art to street art, from body art to the performance, to list the new ones but painting should not be forgotten as it continues to put itself in the making art record. Languages that, although on the one hand prevented to circumscribe the meaning of the art within an exclusive experience, on the other hand revealed innumerable antithetical possibilities to deal with the deep sense of reality without ever revealing its enigma. This very plurality of possible and feasible art forms require the search of expressiveness, not as a univocal interpretation criterion but as a comparison with the truth in a form of enigma. That’s why it’s important to reconsider the contemporary creative language in its sociological extension, to be understood through the solutions of a new communication. “Synthesis, immediacy, evidence”: a logic of the language that distinguishes art identifying the artist, the work, the environment in which making art changes into poetry.

 

These are the new contemporary languages which the artist work with: Marco Bolognesi uses photography and the augmented reality, a science fiction work in progress in the universe of a post-punk megalopolis where anything may occur. Davide Boriani pioneer of the kinetic art, by means of the symbolic representation of the flow of time into the space. Luiz Brugnera transmits a fusion between the brutality of the stone and the softness of the art. Shay Frisch builds a sensation of vibration and envelopment that she transforms in something sacred assembling an object of common use and the electric energy that goes through it. By means of painting Angela Lima shows a representation of the contemporary human condition, engaging the research of the memory and nostalgia. Hannu Palosuo uses different medial surfaces to build his works, a kind of window open to the world of the metaphor and the memory. Juan Parada uses the “site specific” installations in which the interlacing of the nature and the skillful use of the ceramic, other basic element, take back to the positive occurrence of humanity. The works of Antonio Riello create a situation of perceptive overturning producing an interpretation that put the whole workings between language and reality in crisis. Tuomo Rosenlund & Johanna Pohjanvirta use photography and drawing creating images made by real and imaginary elements. Joachim K. Silue uses recycled materials of everyday usage that go back to his memory of the past to describe the disorders of our modern society. Taiji Terasaki makes a tireless survey that starting from a lively and careful nature observation. Jairo Valdati investigates the world through a revision tone, in which the natural/artificial limit is confused but able to grant a rare beauty. Stevens Vaughn filters reality through the sense and the primary elements perception, like the colors that represent them and suggest a meeting place between the man and the universe, producing the memory of the origin.

The works chosen for this visual experience already describe an adventurous and surprising cultural path, in which the juxtaposition of the points of view sometimes radically different, between techniques and languages similar at times, distant other times, can clear up the plot of a tale with many voices, giving us in part a wide reinterpretation of the reality which we are absorbed in. Art is a miracle of life that forces the artist to a permanent work. And with their works these artists have developed a part of the task, the constant research for “oneself”.

STEVENS VAUGHN

The five elements of life

Each of us comes to the self-knowledge as a place in which harmony with the others comes true. That’s why it’s possible to live in our own time, basing our own existence on principles that originate from knowledge. In this way it filters reality through the sense and the primary elements perception, like the colors that represent them and suggest a meeting place between the man and the universe, producing the memory of the origin. The path of life is the expression of the connection between wind and water, shadow and light, sacred and profane. We can’t hold or understand these elements to the fullest. In the absence of duality, everything is one, in continuous flow.

Stevens Vaughn Interview

Stevens Vaughn Interview

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Antipodes

The name “Antipodes” refers to positions that are situated diametrically opposite to one another. 

This title was chosen for this Biennial to metaphorically indicate geographical points radically distant from one another. China, the honored country at this biennial, defines an extreme point especially in relation to Latin American countries. However, culture, especially in its artistic manifestations, has the possibility of creating links and drawing diagrams between the most distant places. Image is, by antonomasia, a device capable of joining distant points. The idea of diversity, one of the focal points of this biennial, is reinforced by the connection of zones and situations that are opposites but overlap without risking their differences.


The subtitle “Profusion of image” refers to the contemporary phenomenon of post-photography, also one of the themes of this biennial. The production of digital image today is superior to the capacity of its reception and use. Our vision is confronted with a profusion of visual information that surpasses its capacity for assimilation. This situation is faced by contemporary art through different strategies that overcome the scope of conventional photography, requiring solutions beyond it – what could be qualified as “expanded photography”, crossed by different techniques and based on varied conceptual reinforcements.

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