Sustainable Art Projects Caught on Video

On Saturday, May 25, 2019, at the international urban sustainability conference EDRA50 Brooklyn, NYU Tandon holds a screening afternoon in cooperation with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy) showcasing recent video art devoted to the topic of sustainable urban environments. Ten short video art contributions by international artists will be presented that extensively deal with issues concerned with the goal of achieving sustainable cities in the near future. The event is part of an ongoing research project curated by Diego Mantoan, critic and art history professor at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, together with Lara Gaeta, an expert in sustainable art and active at Hangar Bicocca in Milan. The curators operated the final selection upon an international call for artists, in order to discover contributions that highlight sustainability concerns through a savvy and insightful use of the artistic means. The screening afternoon is hosted at NYU Tandon right after the end of the conference’s main session, providing a survey of video art that exploits creative strategies to deliver an innovative and profound reflection on sustainable urban development.

The final selection presented by the curators and screened at NYU comprises the following artists with very recent artistic projects devoted to sustainability:

Sasha Vinci and Maria Grazia Galesi
La Repubblica delle Meraviglie | The Republic of Marvels
(2018, Winners of the Sustainable Art Prize, Venice)

James McColl
The Monolithic Dome Cap Unit
(February 2019)

Oriana Haddad
Make my skin
(2016)

Marcha Schagen
Mineral Waste – Flood the Landscape
(2019)

Isabella Pers
live reenactment of When Mind Becomes Form
(2018)

Martina della Valle
One Flower, One Leaf
(2019)

Tiziana Pers
ART_HISTORY/Vucciria
(2018, on the occasion of Manifesta 12, Palermo)

Giovanni Scotti
Cinnamon Heart
(2019)

Andreas Zampella
Your Light
(2017, finalist of the 4^th Edition of “Un’opera per il Castello”, Naples)

Sasha Vinci and Maria Grazia Galesi
La Terra dei Fiori | The Land of Flowers
(w)

CURATORS:

Diego Mantoan is an assistant professor in contemporary art history at Ca' Foscari University of Venice (Department of Humanities) holding a PhD at Freie Universität Berlin. He was director assistant and jury secretary at Venice Biennale (2002-2008), while he later established a career as art archive curator in Germany. He has worked for celebrity artist Douglas Gordon (Berlin) and planned the digitization of the Sigmar Polke Estate (Cologne), while he is still in charge of archive development at Julia Stoschek Collection (Düsseldorf), known as the 21^st century Peggy Guggenheim. He further worked for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. He is a regular contributor to the cultural state broadcast Rai Radio3, especially as author for WikiRadio, and collaborates with the Emilio and Annabianca Vedova Foundation in Venice.

Lara Gaeta graduated in a Master’s degree in Contemporary Art History and Cultural Heritage at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy), with a dissertation about the political and ecological aspects of Joseph Beuys’ actions and performances. In 2018 she participated into the project organized by Ca’ Foscari Sostenibile, titled The Republic of Marvels, with the two Italian artist Sasha Vinci e Maria Grazia Galesi, winner of the Sustainable Art Prize at ArtVerona, contributing to the editing of the exhibition catalogue. During her university studies she worked with relevant public and private art institutions such as the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana of the Pinault Foundation and Alberta Pane Gallery. She is currently working at Pirelli HangarBicocca Foundation in Milan.