Fondazione Berengo Art Space - Murano – Homo Faber – In Citta’ – Burning Falls – Koen Vanmechelen

 

Homo Faber – In Citta’

Fondazione Berengo Art Space - Murano

Burning Falls – Koen Vanmechelen

 

As part of the - In Città section of - Homo Faber 2022 - at the Fondazione Berengo Art Space, in Murano - Adriano Berengo presents Belgian artist’s Koen Vanmechelen exhibition Burning Falls – until May 15.  Thirty fantastical creatures made from the striking combination of glass and Carrara marble, after their success at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence during the Seduzione exhibition are enriched here by a number of previously unseen artworks.

 

Koen Vanmechelen – White Medusa – 2021

 The Medusa, the gorgon whose hair was replaced by snakes whose poison could revive the dead - Vanmechelen draws an astute parallel by noting how chicken eggs are used in modern science as the basis for vaccines and medicines. His Medusa thus becomes a metaphor for humanity itself, imbued with the power to kill as well as the ability to bring new life. 

 

 

"If Burning Falls can break down the walls that divide us today, it will create a transparency in which we will recognise ourselves in

each other,"  

Koen Vanmechelen

 

 

Inspired by the collections of ancient statuary from the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence, the sculptures in the Tempation series depict emperors, philosphers, warriers, heroes and gods but also ordinary men and women sculpted in white Statuario marble.  Their heads are covered with egg fragments in glass.  From the egg, hybrid creatures are generated.  They represent an invitation to escape from the limits of rational thought and codified norms, to follow the challenge of change and let oneself travel to unexpected contaminations, and to finally discover oneself freely, with an open mind.

 Koen Vanmechelen - Temptation – Series - 2021

 

Koen Vanmechelen - Temptation – Series - 2021

 

 

Koen Vanmechelen - Temptation – Antinous - 2021

 

 

A tiger is lying on a carpet of chicken feathers. She seems unaware of the treat to her.  Swords are attacking, yet they are transparent, implicitly harmless, at least for now. The tiger for the moment it is strong – or indifferent – able to handle the threat and survive.  But for how much longer? The predator has become the prey. But the balance is precarious: as soon as a certain limit is exceeded, the tiger, the personification of Nature will attack.

 Koen Vanmechelen – Domestic Violence – 2021

 

A child holds in his arms a creature that he evidently cannot keep under control.  These work reference the iconic 19th-century sculpture by Adriano Cecioni – Bambino con Gallo 1868 – that is shown alongside it recently at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.

Koen Vanmechelen – Cosmopolitan Fossill II - 2021

 

"At the base of the evolutionary chain are crests, claws and eggs: primordial elements, a metaphor for an ancestral world in a perpetual struggle for survival. The snake crawls among them and recalls the decadence resulting from original sin and the final judgement, its inevitable consequence. Species evolved but were lost, in dissolution and self-destruction, from generation to generation. A new segment intervened to redirect evolutionary destiny: the virus. But out of potential destruction, new life emerged, an egg from which a child was generated, blindfolded because it was still unaware.”

Koen Vanmechelen

 

 Koen Vanmechelen – Formula Segreta - 2021  

 

 

Chido Govera and Koen Vanmechelen

 

 

Laurel Saint-Pierre

 

 

Koen Vanmechelen

Vesta Mechelse Cubalaya – 11th Generation Cosmopolitan Chicken Project 2021

 

 

 

These two mummies represent the twenty-third generation of the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project, born from the cross between the Mechelse Maatiaskana-CCPP22 and the Padovana hen.  The mummies, presented together with two sarcophagi as archaeological finds, rise to the rank of sacred relics.   Their presence testifies to both the link with past generations and the possibility of a further rebirth, a new existence.

Vesta Mechelse Cubalaya – 11th Generation Cosmopolitan Chicken Project  2021

 

Special Guests

Bella and Laura Bellucci

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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