Bienal de Valencia 2003: Ciudad Ideal/ The Ideal City
June to September 2003
Bienal de Valencia
Carrer Sant Pius V, 9
46010 Valencia, Spain
Tel.: (34) 963 605 793
Fax: (34) 963 931 971
info@bienaldevalencia.com
press@bienaldevalencia.com
Txomin Badiola “SOS Episode 4 (Wholesome thinking but retail living)”
(2000-01), construction in wood and metal, 394 x 390 x 300
cms.
Valencia (Spain), various exhibition venues in the city centre
Bienal de Valencia 2003
Communication between the arts
Presentation at:
Exit Art (NYC) 21.02.2003 6:30 p.m.
ICA (London) 25.02.2003 6:30 p.m.
GianFranco Ferré 26.02.2003 8:00 p.m.
During the presentation a video by the Spanish film director Bigas
Luna
will be shown, and the participating curators: Will Alsop, Mike
Figgis,
Lóránd Hegyi, Francisco Jarauta, and Bruce McLean will be in
attendance.
The Ideal City
Where is society heading at the beginning of this third millennium?
What’s
the brave new world really going to be like? Whether expectant or
terrified, these are the questions we are asking ourselves.
What does city mean anymore? What does home mean? What are
the things that
make up a city? What are the thoughts, doubts, fears, certainties,
reflections that come to meet us face-to-face as we head towards these
material and immaterial territories where we live?
“While the first Valencia Biennial questioned art as a virtue/vice
of
communication and communication as a virtue/vice of art”, in the
words of
the director Luigi Settembrini “the second Biennial will explore,
together
with leading international artists and creators, the central problem
facing the world today: the destiny of diversity. And it will do so
through a group of works and projects conceived especially for Valencia
which will help us to question the power and potential of the city, of
The
Ideal City, understood as a prismatic place capable of symbolically
ordering and accommodating difference and differences without smothering
them.”
A unique event in the world, covering the spectrum of creative languages
making up our culture, the Valencia Biennial establishes itself as an
international meeting place where the visual arts, architecture, cinema,
design, theatre, music, dance, fashion and advertising all dialogue
together.
Reflecting on, investigating and experimenting with these languages,
conscious of the fact that any cultural experience is ultimately a
profoundly communicative act, is then the main aim of the Valencia
Biennial and one it hopes to share with the general public.
The Ideal City
Director: Luigi Settembrini
1. THE EXHIBITIONS
A & M (Department Stores of Proper Behaviour)
Curators: Will Alsop and Bruce McLean
The Museum of the Imperfect Past
Curator: Mike Figgis
Solares (or On Optimism)
Curator: Lóránd Hegyi
The Face, Mirror of Society
Artist: Sebastiâo Salgado
Micro-UTOPÍAS
Curators: Francisco Jarauta and Jean Louis Maubant
2. A SOCIAL PROJECT
Sociópolis
Curator: Vicente Guallart
3. PROYECTS OF COMMUNICATIONS
Ephemeral Architectures
Curator: Rafael Sierra
Can the Children Save Us?
Artists: 500 children from Valencia
4. THEATRE IN COLLABORATION WITH THE IDEAL CITY AND THE CITY OF
PERFORMING
ARTS
(Artistic director: Irene Papas)
I Take Your Hand in Mine by Carol Rocamora
Director: Peter Brook
Lisistra by Aristophane
Director: Carlos Santos
Shakespeare and his Masks
National Ballet of Cuba
Director/Choreographer: Alicia Alonso
Odyssey 2003
Mediterranean Arts Ship
Barbarian comedies by Valle-Inclán
Director: Bigas Luna
(Closing event of the
2nd Bienal de Valencia)
In this ever smaller world, can art and the arts help us to
understand
that there still exist an infinity of identities, cultures, religions,
beliefs and certainties? Can we manage to find among all these elements
of
value and confidence something more than denunciation and despair? At
least that is what we hope for and what we promise.
Bienal de Valencia
Carrer Sant Pius V, 9
46010 Valencia (Spain)
Tel.: (34) 963 605 793
Fax: (34) 963 931 971
e-mail: info@bienaldevalencia.com
