Messenger for Respiro by Sarkis in Rotterdam
9 May–22 November 2015
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Museumpark 18-20
NL-3015 CX Rotterdam
Netherlands
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11am–5pm
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is (proud to be) one of the six “messenger” institutions that create a continuous dialogue with Respiro, an installation by the conceptual artist Sarkis in the Pavilion of Turkey at the 56th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia. Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), and curated by Defne Ayas (Director of Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art), Respiro will be on exhibit at the biennale to be held from 9 May through 22 November 2015.
Among the elements of Sarkis’s installation at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam are the feathered bicycle used by visitors to cycle around the 2012 exhibition Ballads and the round table where visitors are asked to leave something personal. Seven works of art from the museum’s own collection and from the Centraal Museum Utrecht are on display. In 2012 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen invited Sarkis to work in the Submarine Wharf. He presented Ballads in this 5,000-square-metre space in the Port of Rotterdam. This installation was inspired by the 17th-century church interiors of Pieter Saenredam (1597–1665). Using large sculptural objects, coloured light and music, Sarkis transformed the two halls of the industrial wharf into a unique installation, where the visitor is immersed in a world of mysticism and symbolism.
Rather than making individual artworks Sarkis creates spatial installations in which he makes connections between seemingly irreconcilable phenomena, such as form and sound, past and present, art and immateriality, religion and freedom. His installation Respiro (Breath) is a meditation on the subjects of endless dialogue and transformation. Other “messenger” sites include Château d’Angers in Angers, Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire in Chaumont-sur-Loire, Hrant Dink Foundation in Istanbul, Mamco, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Geneva, and Musée du Château des ducs de Wurtemberg in Montbéliard.
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T +31 10 441 9561 / pressoffice [at] boijmans.nl
