Cuban artist Geandy Pavonprojected a giant image of Ai Weiwei on the Consulate General of China in Manhattan on Friday night. Since the diplomatic mission’s security always runs protesters off their sidewalk and into a designated patch of concrete across the street, this was appropriate. Protest project Nemesis Ai Weiwei: The Elusiveness of Being had a rippling Ai portrait tower over Twelfth Avenue, haunting the building with a public shaming. This video’s scenes of New Yorkers recognizing Ai’s face are heartwarming, but the action is only symbolic. Too many of Ai’s friends and associates are still missing and the reported details on Ai’s brief visit with his wife seem suspicious. Support from the international art community is growing steadily, but the Chinese government has not wavered in their demonstrative persecution of the artist. by Marina Galperinavia placeboKatz: Ai Weiwei Projected on Chinese Consulate in NYC)
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HAI SCOPERTO L’AMERICA! at Whitebox, NY tuesday 19. Jan. 7pm 9 ‘discovered’ videos curated by Andrea Monti
“But in truth, should I meet with gold or spices in great quantity, I shall remain till I collect as much as possible, and for this purpose I am proceeding solely in quest of them.” Christopher Columbus
“You discovered America!” is what your mother tells you, in Italy, when you think you discovered for the first time something amazing, and instead you’ve just found something everyone else already knows since ages. A variant can be “you discovered hot water!”. I mean, everybody knows that America exists, right? Well, that’s exactly the feeling I have in presenting this program of 9 short videos realised by renowned artists who have been working in New York for many years, and many of you already know probably, but I meet only now in my personal trajectory. I went ashore only 6 months ago coming from Lucca, a little roman city in the hearth of Tuscany, where I run a film festival for the ‘happy few’. Hai scoperto l’America! is the second stage (the first was called NYC TO PAL and took place in Lucca last October) of a larger project aiming to make these works circulate both in Italy and New York. The other main purpose is to bring in the context of contemporary art galleries very interesting artists related mostly to avant-garde and experimental video-making, whose work is remarkable and particulary predisposed. White Box is the perfect venue for this to happen: very watchful and open towards the domain of video-art, sensitive, thoughtful. For my experience, I have to say, I discovered here - beyond my already very high expectations - an experimental-video “El Dorado”, and I think it’s a shame that so many extraordinary works don’t have in Europe the attention and the recognition they deserve, making the ocean seem bigger than it really is. Well, let’s just say, so far. If I wanted to explain why this show, I would say that you don’t explain love, it just happens. And it was love at first sight with these works. Simply, I came and this is what I found. I mean, not ALL I found, I’m not so lazy! The very special ones.
Andrea Monti is a 26-year-old italian artist born in Lucca (Tuscany) at present working and living in Brooklyn, NY. He’s one of the funders and organizers of the Lucca Film Festival in Italy, an annual event with strong focuses on experimental and avant-garde cinema.
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