Transit 4: Eugenio Tibaldi | Dimitri Kotsaras, Jennifer Nelson

TRANSIT-4

Curated by Adriana Rispoli, Eugenio Viola, Katerina Gregos

Curated by Adriana Rispoli, Eugenio Viola, Katerina Gregos

Madre Museum, Naples 26.05.10 | 13.09.10

State Museum of Contemporary Art, THessaloniki 15.12.10 – 15.11.11

The State Museum of Contemporary Art in collaboration with MADRE Contemporary Art Museum of Donnaregina in Naples, is organizing the exhibition TRANSIT-4, curated by Adriana Rispoli, Eugenio Viola and Katerinas Gregos.

TRANSIT is a reflection on the geopolitical position and the anthropological background of Naples. The network that TRANSIT aims to establish symbolically reopens the ancient Mediterranean routes starting from the past of places to reflect on their present and on their delicate social and environmental balances. Lastly it investigates the complexity and the stratifications of what we could call “palimpsest cities”, borrowing an expression from Georg Simmel. The project has already been presented in Cairo, Istanbul and Tel Aviv and its last destination will be in Thessaloniki. The fourth and final step of the ΤRANSIT project will launch the works of two artists from Greece, Dimitri Kotsaras and Jennifer Nelson, and works by the Italian artist Eugenio Tibaldi. The first part of TRANSIT-4 was realized at MADRE Contemporary Art Museum of Donnaregina in Naples, in May 26th, 2010.

The artists where initially invited to create original works that will explore the relationships that the two cities of Thessaloniki and Naples may have, based on their geographical location and their delicate historical and political background. 

The work of Dimitri Kotsaras and Jennifer Nelson consist of a film and an installation, while a performance will be held on the opening nigh.  Their work demonstrates their ongoing concern with environmental issues and the natural environment. Taking the fragile eco-system of the Mediterranean basis as the symbolic point of departure, Nelson & Kotsaras devised a performance and a film for the TRANSIT project which aims to generate awareness about two specific issues: the mindless and ubiquitous use of household chemicals and the threatened biodiversity of the Mediterranean sea, which is the result of the use of these chemicals, in addition to industrial waste and other pollutants that threaten the so-called mare nostrum and the living creatures within it. The residue of the performance along with the film will be shown at the project room and will function as a kind of requiem for the dwindling fish populations of the Mediterranean, either due to pollution – domestic or industrial - or over-fishing.  Their film, a S.M.C.A. production, with the title Untitled (Disaster) that was created for the purpose of the exhibition, will be presented in the Experimental Forum, a parallel programme of the 51st Thessaloniki Film Festival.

Eugenio Tibaldi takes his cue from various elements and creates a visual palimpsest that combines the different materials collected in the two cities. A two-headed boat, obtained from the hybridization between a Greek trechandiri and a Neapolitan gozzo, becomes the starting point of his socio-anthropological research.  The construction presented in his installation becomes the metaphor of the history of the two cities and of their destinies, with a fictitious skyline of the coastlines of Naples and Thessaloniki united by their ports.