Lucy & Jorge Orta
25 Nov 2006 - 28 Jan 2007
LUCY & JORGE ORTA
"OrtaWater 03"
Lucy and Jorge Orta’s latest exhibition is opening at the Galleria Continua in Beijing on 25 November (5pm).
This show by the two Anglo-Argentine artists offers a view of “operational aesthetics”, a line of enquiry they have been pursuing for fifteen years together and which has taken them all over the world: to the Antarctic and Tierra del Fuego, the opulence of Venice and the favelas of Lima; to the research centres of the University of the Arts London, Eindhoven and Fabrica Treviso; the exhibition galleries of the Barbican in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and Tokyo, or the Fondation Cartier; not to mention the public space in the local neighbourhood markets, the banlieus of Paris and the slums of Mexico City.
The central part of the show is the third phase of the OrtaWater research first initiated by the Ortas during the last Venice Biennial, inaugurated at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, which toured to the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam (Holland) and is now, for the first time in Beijing, China at the Galleria Continua.
This project will lead them, like modern-day Marco Polos, to symbolically connect Italy and China in this very special year of friendship and negotiations between the two nations.
Water is essential to our existence. The absence of freshwater for drinking or water for, agriculture or industry is an element that links Europe with all continents. Hyper industrialized nations and nations that are just commencing mass industrialization, rich and poor rural areas, places where war is a source of conflict and others in which there is competition for economic progress. No matter our differences, this resource is the common thread that unites us, and for which we so desperately need to find common solutions for the safeguard of our planet and the generations ahead.
The artworks presented at the Galleria Continua in Beijing feature, with a mixture of playfulness and dramaturgy, practicality and utopia: machines for pumping, desalinating and purifying dirty water and that have already transformed the canal waters of Venice and Rotterdam into drinking water. Canoes and Piaggio Api three-wheeler vehicles modified into water treatment plants and motorized transporters, bicycles and hand-pushed trolleys that can arrive anywhere under any circumstance. Water to be collected with buckets, flasks, jerry cans, and water bottles. These objects may not be fully operational yet, but perhaps in the not too distant future we will have to figure out ways of using them: how to collect, transport and store this precious liquid, avoiding those common wasteful practices that manifest themselves whenever we turn on the tap, in London, Rotterdam, Venice or Beijing. The artists create a hypothetical territory where the poetry within each of the artworks offers a trigger to and an alternative way of exploring this crucial issue.
Progress or regress? How can we balance the future technological developments of advanced nations with that of the plight for the survival of developing countries with no environmental conservation laws, for example? Local problems that become universal ones, in the hope that even those nations that have not yet completed the process of industrialization may find new solutions applicable to other nations that think they have nothing to worry about.
The show at the Galleria Continua, although it is centred on the OrtaWater project, also includes a second part, which is representative of another strand of Lucy and Jorge Orta’s work. Amongst the most significant of these is a collection of Body Architecture sculptures referencing the intricacies of our human relationships, networks and communication systems and that deal with issues of solidarity, the social bond that unites us as individuals to the community at large.
These artworks demonstrate a contemporary vision of the world receptive to the links between global and local. They offer an open discussion platform to the uncertain nature of our common destiny as Europeans, Africans, Asians or Americans, an issue which requires a long-term commitment to find satisfactory new solutions with imagination, courage and awareness: solutions for every single human being but also for every community, big and small alike.
Lucy and Jorge Orta’s work is impassioned, lucid and full of beauty, civil empathy and concrete imagination, an ongoing adventure marked by great curiosity, which is presented here for the first time for a Chinese public.
"OrtaWater 03"
Lucy and Jorge Orta’s latest exhibition is opening at the Galleria Continua in Beijing on 25 November (5pm).
This show by the two Anglo-Argentine artists offers a view of “operational aesthetics”, a line of enquiry they have been pursuing for fifteen years together and which has taken them all over the world: to the Antarctic and Tierra del Fuego, the opulence of Venice and the favelas of Lima; to the research centres of the University of the Arts London, Eindhoven and Fabrica Treviso; the exhibition galleries of the Barbican in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and Tokyo, or the Fondation Cartier; not to mention the public space in the local neighbourhood markets, the banlieus of Paris and the slums of Mexico City.
The central part of the show is the third phase of the OrtaWater research first initiated by the Ortas during the last Venice Biennial, inaugurated at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, which toured to the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam (Holland) and is now, for the first time in Beijing, China at the Galleria Continua.
This project will lead them, like modern-day Marco Polos, to symbolically connect Italy and China in this very special year of friendship and negotiations between the two nations.
Water is essential to our existence. The absence of freshwater for drinking or water for, agriculture or industry is an element that links Europe with all continents. Hyper industrialized nations and nations that are just commencing mass industrialization, rich and poor rural areas, places where war is a source of conflict and others in which there is competition for economic progress. No matter our differences, this resource is the common thread that unites us, and for which we so desperately need to find common solutions for the safeguard of our planet and the generations ahead.
The artworks presented at the Galleria Continua in Beijing feature, with a mixture of playfulness and dramaturgy, practicality and utopia: machines for pumping, desalinating and purifying dirty water and that have already transformed the canal waters of Venice and Rotterdam into drinking water. Canoes and Piaggio Api three-wheeler vehicles modified into water treatment plants and motorized transporters, bicycles and hand-pushed trolleys that can arrive anywhere under any circumstance. Water to be collected with buckets, flasks, jerry cans, and water bottles. These objects may not be fully operational yet, but perhaps in the not too distant future we will have to figure out ways of using them: how to collect, transport and store this precious liquid, avoiding those common wasteful practices that manifest themselves whenever we turn on the tap, in London, Rotterdam, Venice or Beijing. The artists create a hypothetical territory where the poetry within each of the artworks offers a trigger to and an alternative way of exploring this crucial issue.
Progress or regress? How can we balance the future technological developments of advanced nations with that of the plight for the survival of developing countries with no environmental conservation laws, for example? Local problems that become universal ones, in the hope that even those nations that have not yet completed the process of industrialization may find new solutions applicable to other nations that think they have nothing to worry about.
The show at the Galleria Continua, although it is centred on the OrtaWater project, also includes a second part, which is representative of another strand of Lucy and Jorge Orta’s work. Amongst the most significant of these is a collection of Body Architecture sculptures referencing the intricacies of our human relationships, networks and communication systems and that deal with issues of solidarity, the social bond that unites us as individuals to the community at large.
These artworks demonstrate a contemporary vision of the world receptive to the links between global and local. They offer an open discussion platform to the uncertain nature of our common destiny as Europeans, Africans, Asians or Americans, an issue which requires a long-term commitment to find satisfactory new solutions with imagination, courage and awareness: solutions for every single human being but also for every community, big and small alike.
Lucy and Jorge Orta’s work is impassioned, lucid and full of beauty, civil empathy and concrete imagination, an ongoing adventure marked by great curiosity, which is presented here for the first time for a Chinese public.