PLAY gallery
for still and motion pictures / Berlin
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GIULIANA
CUNÉAZ
Terrains Vagues
March 1–22, 2003
Opening: February 28, 2003, 7 pm
PLAY gallery for still and motion pictures
hannoversche strasse 1
d-10115 berlin
T +49-30-2758 2111
T +49-30-2345 5753
http://www.pushthebuttonplay.co
m
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GIULIANA CUNÉAZ
Terrains Vagues
March 1–22, 2003
Mon – Sat 2-8 pm
Opening: February 28, 2003, 7 pm
In collaboration with B&D Studio Contemporanea, Milan. http://www.bnd.it
The PLAY gallery for still and motion pictures in Berlin is the site of
Germany’s first solo show of the work of Giuliana Cunéaz. For
several
years this Italian video artist‘s work has looked at the
unexplored parts
of the mind. Her past efforts include a cycle on shamans who enter the
perceptive world of vision and clairvoyance, revealing to others the
internal vortex of revelation that remains beyond the physical.
For this occasion, Giuliana Cunéaz has created a project called
“Terrains
Vagues“ on the city of Berlin, where real and imaginary elements
converge,
giving rise to an intriguing and complex journey during which the German
capital reflects the contradictions of modern society. The show includes
three video installations on daily life—social aspects such as
holidays
and costumes—interpreted from an anthropological point-of-view.
What
interests this artist is leaving behind the conscious mind and
transitioning to the infinite internal world.
In addition to ancient Dionysian themes, Giuliana Cunéaz reflects on
the
theme of memory and disorientation through a video installation created
in
collaboration with some residents of Berlin, who were asked to rake soil
for an ideal natural space located in the center of the city, as if that
simple request could unearth a desire to find their own roots. In the
words of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, these are Notes from Underground
brought to
light through exhaustive self-analysis.
“Raking soil was a way of digging through the incomprehensible,
unknown
and enigmatic world in order to concentrate on a primary element, a
place
of death and birth, in order to momentarily escape from the sharply
drawn
rhythms of society in an attempt to listen to the most hidden parts of
ourselves through the underground of the soul. I also wanted to
emphasize
the relationship between identity and formative processes, beginning
with
awareness that the individual is a crowd,” the artist explains.
The title,
Terrains Vagues, refers to the undefined areas that so aptly link
the end
of one world with the beginning of another. In short, this is a universe
of abandoned spaces and free spaces—including mental spaces. As is
often
the case in Giuliana Cunéaz’s work, border areas are explored
using a
mental map that allows her to point out that which defies rationality.
The
“Terrains Vagues” project also reflects on one of the great
issues in
contemporary art: the vacuum, both physical and existential, set forth
as
an ideal in work by artists such as Lucio Fontana and Yves Klein, who
have
gone beyond the physical dimension to the psychological.
Giuliana Cunéaz was born in Aosta in 1959 and lives and works in
Milan.
Her first solo show was held in 1984 at the Teatro Romano in Aosta.
Since
then she has exhibited work in well-known public and private spaces in
Italy and throughout the world. She participated in the Festival di
Videoformes in 1991, 1993 and 1996. In 1994 she took part in the Saõ
Paulo
Biennial in Brazil, and in 1996 she exhibited work at the Obalne Galerie
in Pirano, Slovenia. In 2002, her works were exhibited at the Museum of
Contemporary Art in Bucharest.
In Italy, in 1995 her work appeared at the Revoltella Museum in Trieste,
in 2000 at the Pecci Museum in Prato and also in 2000 at the Torre del
Lebbroso in Aosta. In 2001 she had solo shows at Castello Ursino in
Catania and at the Museum Laboratory of Contemporary Art at La Sapienza
University in Rome. In 2002 she participated in Exit at the Fondazione
Sandretto Re Rebaudengo space in Turin, and in January 2003 her solo
show
Turbe celesti [Heavenly Crowds] opened at the B & D gallery in
Milan. In
October she is slated to have a show at the Annecy Castle in France.
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