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Since its opening in 2019, GAD has collaborated with many artists and curators. It's our priority to gather on the island, international and local professionals to construct a dialogue between contemporary art and craft, design, architecture and social life.
GAD Giudecca Art District is also a place where to dig into contemporary practice and researches, and where to discuss trough art about the important issues of our times.
YOKO ONO. Write Your Untold Story, 2018 / 2019
Site-specific public installation, print on paper
2 panels, dimensions 100x200cm each one
© Yoko ONO All rights reserved. Courtesy of the artist
Some artists featured at GAD
Yoko Ono
Cloud Piece, 1963 Spring.
GAD, 2019.
On the occasion of GAD's first program in 2019 - "Take Care of your Garden" - Yoko Ono presented two site specific installations dislocated in the boatyard : "Cloud Piece" (1963) from the historical series of Instructions, and "Write your Untold Story" (2018/2019). The Instructions are participative works, started by the artist in the '60s. The pieces invite the viewers to interact with it and to complet it through their imagination. The selected instruction is a poetic invitation to dig a hole in our garden and fulfill it with dripping clouds.
GAD, 2019.
On the occasion of GAD's first program in 2019 - "Take Care of your Garden" - Yoko Ono presented two site specific installations dislocated in the boatyard : "Cloud Piece" (1963) from the historical series of Instructions, and "Write your Untold Story" (2018/2019). The Instructions are participative works, started by the artist in the '60s. The pieces invite the viewers to interact with it and to complet it through their imagination. The selected instruction is a poetic invitation to dig a hole in our garden and fulfill it with dripping clouds.
Kendell Geers
Petals of Blood, public-art installation, GAD Giudecca Art District, 2019
For GAD's program titled Take Care of your Garden. Cultivating a new Humanism, Kendell Geers created a site-specific work for the entrance of the boatyard. "Petals of Blood" mimed a surface pierced by giant bullets. As suggested by the title, the bullets holes are metaphorically identified as petals of blood referring to the violence and oppression that is still suffocating humanity in current times.
For GAD's program titled Take Care of your Garden. Cultivating a new Humanism, Kendell Geers created a site-specific work for the entrance of the boatyard. "Petals of Blood" mimed a surface pierced by giant bullets. As suggested by the title, the bullets holes are metaphorically identified as petals of blood referring to the violence and oppression that is still suffocating humanity in current times.
Moataz Nasr
Merge and Emerge, Video Installation, 2011
Presented in the exhibition "Liquid Existence" (2019), curated by Valentina Gioia Levy the Merge and Emerge is a meditative, and hypnotic 3 channels video installation. The videos show three Sufi dancers, that seem to invite the spectators to experience ecstatic prayerfulness.
According to Moataz Nasr : "dancing is liberating. It can be therapeutic, or a rite of passage: a state of trance can be obtained through dance. It is also an animal expression of our instincts.
By dancing, whirling in concentric circles in which they become lost, cancelling out the centrifugal and centripetal forces, Sufis reach a degree of concentration which allows them to forget weight and to access other mental heights. To knowledge that the mind alone is not able to reach. Therefore they can, to parody Rimbaud, ‘see what man is unable to see.’ "
Presented in the exhibition "Liquid Existence" (2019), curated by Valentina Gioia Levy the Merge and Emerge is a meditative, and hypnotic 3 channels video installation. The videos show three Sufi dancers, that seem to invite the spectators to experience ecstatic prayerfulness.
According to Moataz Nasr : "dancing is liberating. It can be therapeutic, or a rite of passage: a state of trance can be obtained through dance. It is also an animal expression of our instincts.
By dancing, whirling in concentric circles in which they become lost, cancelling out the centrifugal and centripetal forces, Sufis reach a degree of concentration which allows them to forget weight and to access other mental heights. To knowledge that the mind alone is not able to reach. Therefore they can, to parody Rimbaud, ‘see what man is unable to see.’ "
Aleksandra Karpowicz
Body as Home, Video installation, 2019.
Curated by Miguel Mallol, Body as Home is a three-channel film presented in triptych that documents a journey of self-discovery, identity, migration and a search for the meaning of home. Filmed in 4 different cities; Cape Town, London, New York and Warsaw, Body as Home captures 3 protagonists in each city – a local, a visitor and the filmmaker herself in order to explore the concept of home in regard to geographical location, one’s placement within society, and personal identity.
The film explores how notions of physical selfhood and our sense of home overlap. Body as Home looks to address the relationship between human physicality, sexuality and identity and urge viewers to accept and feel at home in their own bodies.
“The way you feel in your skin informs the way you interact with your environment. The aim of this film is to address the relationship between human physicality, sexuality and identity and urge viewers to accept and feel at home in their own bodies.” (A. Karpowicz)
Curated by Miguel Mallol, Body as Home is a three-channel film presented in triptych that documents a journey of self-discovery, identity, migration and a search for the meaning of home. Filmed in 4 different cities; Cape Town, London, New York and Warsaw, Body as Home captures 3 protagonists in each city – a local, a visitor and the filmmaker herself in order to explore the concept of home in regard to geographical location, one’s placement within society, and personal identity.
The film explores how notions of physical selfhood and our sense of home overlap. Body as Home looks to address the relationship between human physicality, sexuality and identity and urge viewers to accept and feel at home in their own bodies.
“The way you feel in your skin informs the way you interact with your environment. The aim of this film is to address the relationship between human physicality, sexuality and identity and urge viewers to accept and feel at home in their own bodies.” (A. Karpowicz)
Jelili Atiku
My Eyes Are Larger Than My Mouth. Performance, curated by Rikke Jorgensen, 2019
The performance was part of Arts & Globalization Platform's proposal : Politics of Space, a public talk- and performance program part of GAD – Giudecca Art District during the Venice Biennale 2019.
The performance was part of Arts & Globalization Platform's proposal : Politics of Space, a public talk- and performance program part of GAD – Giudecca Art District during the Venice Biennale 2019.
Carlo Zanni
Actual Supply, 2019
Banner installation, curated by Villam
"When the price is the artwork, the artist becomes the unit of currency. Then the rats come and eat them all. " (C. Zanni)
Banner installation, curated by Villam
"When the price is the artwork, the artist becomes the unit of currency. Then the rats come and eat them all. " (C. Zanni)
Massimo Uberti
Untitled. Neon and books, Site specific installation, 2020
Milan-based artist Massimo Uberti is known for his large-scale light installations. Using neon tubes and transformers, his site-specific works interact with the environment, furnitures and the everyday objects. About his practice, Uberti told in an interview : “I like to create architectures of light. I employ neon tubes to build places for poetical inhabitants, trying to create dream-like spaces that allow for reflection.”
Milan-based artist Massimo Uberti is known for his large-scale light installations. Using neon tubes and transformers, his site-specific works interact with the environment, furnitures and the everyday objects. About his practice, Uberti told in an interview : “I like to create architectures of light. I employ neon tubes to build places for poetical inhabitants, trying to create dream-like spaces that allow for reflection.”
Andrea Aquilanti
Mixed-media site-specific installation, Installation view at GAD, 2020
Aquilanti is well known for his poetic and evocative site-specific installations, conjugating video projection, photography, and wall drawings. In his interventions, the viewers become an active element and a component of the work itself. In fact, like in the case of the work he presented in GAD, Aquilanti recorded the public and projected the images inside the installation, creating a superimposition of realities.
Using elements such as light and shadow, drawing, and video, Aquilanti builds a lyrical dialogue between contemporary practice and pictorial tradition.
Aquilanti is well known for his poetic and evocative site-specific installations, conjugating video projection, photography, and wall drawings. In his interventions, the viewers become an active element and a component of the work itself. In fact, like in the case of the work he presented in GAD, Aquilanti recorded the public and projected the images inside the installation, creating a superimposition of realities.
Using elements such as light and shadow, drawing, and video, Aquilanti builds a lyrical dialogue between contemporary practice and pictorial tradition.
Cecilia Jansson
Exploring the Difference, 2021, workshop organized by Peggy Guggenheim and Swatch Art Peace Hotel.
From 22 to 24 January, 2021, GAD - Giudecca Art District hosted the final installation of the workshop "Exploring the distance", conducted remotely by Cecilia Jansson. The Swedish artist was the protagonist of the third appointment of the "SuperaMenti project. Artistic practices for a new present", conceived by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection together with Swatch Art Peace Hotel to give Generation Z young people, aged 16 to 25, the opportunity to dialogue, albeit at a distance, with internationally renowned artists, share their artistic practice. For the museum it was the first experience of returning a remote laboratory, which saw the participation of over 35 young people, through an installation created in Venice by Jansson, an installation that was "enjoyed" by the participants and the public in digital and that we are now pleased to present thanks to a short video in which the artist met the director of the museum Karole PB Vail and Carlo Giordanetti, CEO of Swatch Art Peace Hotel.
From 22 to 24 January, 2021, GAD - Giudecca Art District hosted the final installation of the workshop "Exploring the distance", conducted remotely by Cecilia Jansson. The Swedish artist was the protagonist of the third appointment of the "SuperaMenti project. Artistic practices for a new present", conceived by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection together with Swatch Art Peace Hotel to give Generation Z young people, aged 16 to 25, the opportunity to dialogue, albeit at a distance, with internationally renowned artists, share their artistic practice. For the museum it was the first experience of returning a remote laboratory, which saw the participation of over 35 young people, through an installation created in Venice by Jansson, an installation that was "enjoyed" by the participants and the public in digital and that we are now pleased to present thanks to a short video in which the artist met the director of the museum Karole PB Vail and Carlo Giordanetti, CEO of Swatch Art Peace Hotel.
Markus Heinsdorff
The Space we Live in curated by Pier Paolo Scelsi, 2021
"Paper Box House" is an architectural concept exploring the idea of (super) living space made of recycled cardboard. Markus Heinsdorff's project for GAD, which runs in parallel with the Venice Architecture Biennial, deals with nature both as a living space and as architecture in a broader sense that indicates the natural habitat as our home. The artist's work examines the issues of the rapid destruction of the environment and the irrevocable consumption of resources. It also wants to raise awareness about the urgency of their protection.
"Paper Box House" is an architectural concept exploring the idea of (super) living space made of recycled cardboard. Markus Heinsdorff's project for GAD, which runs in parallel with the Venice Architecture Biennial, deals with nature both as a living space and as architecture in a broader sense that indicates the natural habitat as our home. The artist's work examines the issues of the rapid destruction of the environment and the irrevocable consumption of resources. It also wants to raise awareness about the urgency of their protection.
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