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October 19, 2006- December 9, 2006
Reception: October 19, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Alterazioni Video
Chelsea Art Museum
556 W 22nd StCurated by Ombretta Agró and Manon Slome
Alterazioni Video is a collective of young artists, musicians, film makers and engineers all sharing Italian origins, but currently living and working in New York and Milan. In the installation, Mediterraneo, the artists revisit their roots and their shared heritage: the rich, cosmopolitan and evocative area of the Mediterranean, whose diverse peoples, languages and religions have, as the name suggests, stood at the center of the world. Mediterraneo is composed of several elements playing on sights, textures, colors and objects that summon the sense of the region. Yet Alterazioni Video plays with the technique of displacement of these quotidian occupations and objects to raise questions of how traditional connotations are subverted by circumstance. Picasso' s revolutionary painting, Guernica, originally inspired by the Spanish Civil War, has long ago surpassed its immediate frame of reference and has became an icon for the horrors of war. When the United Nations covered its own copy with a blue fabric on the occasion of the U.S. Government's declaration of war on Iraq on October 6th, 2002, the U.S. Government added a new layer of significance to this icon. Alterazioni Video plays with this shift of meaning, colliding issues of "cover up," with references from the UN blue fabric to the blue of the sea and the blue screen of the anchor's backdrop on the TV news. Untitled, a flacon with Palestinian blood contained in an antique perfume vial, questions the exchange value of life and artifacts. Should the work be sold, proceeds from the sale will be sent to the family of the donor in the Gaza strip. With Extra Holy Virgin Project Alterazioni Video presents a video installation which fuses the Tuscan farmers' centuries-old knowledge of olive oil production with the moods, music, style and techniques of the MTV generation. The piece is accompanied by two hundred bottles of the extra virgin olive oil made by the co-operative arranged as an installation. A final element is the painting which translates the classical "Virgin" or Madonna into a cultural grafted symbol. Part of the commitment that Alterazioni Video and the Chelsea Art Museum are making to create a dialogue around the issues raised by the installation is the constant presence of the artists in the exhibition space during the opening hours. Oil tasting will also take place through gallery hours.
Special Thanks to Omar J., Marika, Preromanbritian LLC, Jonah Freeman
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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