BREATHLESS / SENZA RESPIRO
London Art Now / Arte Contemporanea a Londra
From 19 October 2019
Venezia, Ca’ Pesaro Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna
Curated by Norman Rosenthal, Harry Woodlock
with Elisabetta Barisoni
With the support of The British Council
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BREATHLESS – London Art Now explores the reality of contemporary art in one of the great centres of global culture today. Through the work of 15 emerging artists the exhibition presents a diverse array of disciplines including painting, sculpture, video, installation and performance.
All of these young emerging artists live and work in London. The exhibition presents over 40 works, many of which are shown in Italy for the very first time. Five original site-specific installations commissioned by Ca’ Pesaro are joined by other works from the collections of UK cultural institutions such as the British Council and Arts Council, and directly from galleries and artist studios. The exhibition itself intends to illustrate the contemporary cultural landscape in the city today.
In 1997, curator Norman Rosenthal staged the now legendary Sensation at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The exhibition of some forty-two artists, including Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas, is understood to have been instrumental in the popularisation of the Young British Art movement. Rosenthal speaks again of a new generation emerging now: «in spite of all the huge problems young artists face, and have always faced, today in London and elsewhere, the beautiful thing is that creativity and originality of art continues to flourish in interesting and even startling ways. This exhibition, I like to think, will be a new beautiful manifestation of this truth coming from London.»
Harry Woodlock remarks: «for some forty years now the UK has embraced a political ideology that equates economic prosperity with individual happiness. Whilst growth has brought enormous benefits to London, increased competition has produced widespread stress, anxiety and depression. As much as this exhibition seeks to refurbish a critique of capitalism it is above all a remark on the resilience of a young generation of artists who in spite of it all continue to produce urgent and challenging new work.»
With Breathless, Ca’ Pesaro once again underlines its mission to be a museum of the present and reference point for renewal in society. As Elisabetta Barisoni says: «through the filter of contemporary art, once again, we look for answers, even though we know that the best art is one that does not easily provide these, and at the most poses questions; even though we know that the artist’s eye always discerns and is more intense, more crude, more visionary than the news reports and more irrational than historicisation. But often it is more durable and sometimes even eternal.»
Exhibition design and identity will be by the REAL foundation, a London-based cultural institute and architectural practice founded by Jack Self. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the opening of this exhibition.
Artists on show (in italic the artists with site-specific commissioned works): Larry Achiampong, Alvaro Barrington, Alice Channer, Matt Copson, Nicolas Deshayes, Ed Fornieles, Anthea Hamilton, Tom Hardwick-Allan, Celia Hempton, Evan Ifekoya, Lydia Ourahmane, Eddie Peake, Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, Prem Sahib, Victoria Sin, Issy Wood.
