4th Biennale Gherdëina
knock on wood
18.07. –
01.10.2014
curated by Luca Beatrice
Concept
The expression "knock on wood" has to do with luck and with warding off evil; everyone feels the need to protect themselves from misfortune in some way. This sort of good mood surrounds the opening of the 4" Biennale in Ortisei and the Val Gardena, with its focus on contemporary sculpture. Five artists were invited to participate: two locals, Bruno Walpoth and Willy Verginer, who are however known around the world, and three artists from different places: Chris Gilmour is an English man who lives in Udine; Sonia Leimer was born in Merano but works in Vienna; and Velasco lives between Milan and Lake Como.
For the first time since the Biennale has been held, the artists were asked to create public sculptures that would interact with the historic town centre of Ortisei, dialoguing with residents and tourists rather than imposing themselves as if they had been dropped into town from outer space. There were no restrictions as to subject or theme, but the material used had to be wood, even though the artists were not all experienced in working with this material.
Luca Beatrice was born in Turin in 1961. Art critic and instructor at the Accademia Albertina in Turin, in 2009 he was curator of the Italian Pavilion at the Biennale in Venice.
He has published volumes and essays on young Italian art, including Nuova Scena ("New Scene", G. Mondadori, 1995), Nuova Arte Italiana ("New Italian Art", Castelvecchi, 1998) and a monograph on Renato Zero entitled Zero, (Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2007). He wrote the book Da che arte stai? Una storia revisionista dell'arte italiana ("Which art are you on? A revised history of Italian art", Rizzoli 2010) and a volume on the relationship between music and art entitled Visioni di suoni ("Visions of Sound", Arcana 2010), while in 2011 he and Marco Bazzini edited Live! (Rizzoli 2011) and wrote Gli uomini della Signora ("The men of the Signora", Dalai 2011), paying homage to "his" team Juventus. In 2012 Rizzoli published his volume Pop. L'invenzione dell'artista come star ("Pop: The invention of the artist as star"). He writes for the newspaper La Stampa's weekly magazine Torino Sette, and for Arte and Riders magazines. He was curator of the 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th editions of the Premio Cairo and is Chairman of the Readers' Circle of Turin. On April 3 2013 his latest book was published: Sex. Erotismi nell'arte da Courbet a YouPorn ("Sex: Eroticisim in art, from Courbet to YouPorn", published by Rizzoli). In 2014 he was curator of the Imago Mundi project for Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche.
Curator
Team
Doris Ghetta – Director•Igor Comploi – Deputy Director / Production Manager•Corinna Carbone – Curatorial Assistance•Willi Crepaz – Productions •Mahlknecht & Comploi – Architectural studio•Simon Perathoner – Photographer •Arnold Dall’O – Graphics•Ing. Simon Neulichedel – Statics