SUB REAL
Reality Survival Strategies

Guest Curator Bartolomeo Pietromarchi

Opening Reception Saturday April 5, 21:00h



SMART PROJECT SPACE, AMSTERDAM
1e Constantijn Huygensstraat 20
www.smartprojectspace.net



Artists invited

micol assael

mark bain

marco boggio sella

martin creed

john bock

piero golia

cesare pietroiusti
santiago sierra







Self consciousness - mental location - anonymous communication - Natural Co=
ndition of Mankind
integration/disintegration - self control - (distr)action - loss of identity







Contemporary art must face up to the redefinition of the concepts of realit=
y, experience and identity.

In the contemporary era the concept of experience has undergone a profound =
transformation: the increasingly all-consuming media representation and the=
standardisation of models of life alienated by repetition have gradually e=
roded its status as reality. The spread of models of behaviour and aestheti=
c models subjects individual experience to standardisation and assimilation=
. This process has reached its height in what Guy Debord has defined the So=
ciety of spectacle, where "the image constructed and chosen by someone else=
has become the individual's main relationship with the world", a society, =
therefore, in which the mediated relationship replaces the empirical and ph=
enomenal certainty of personal experience. The unique, singular value of e=
xperience has gradually been replaced by a relationship with the world shap=
ed in its collective dimension and standardised in its representation - con=
structed on the basis of mass, consumerist models - where the very "social =
relationship between people is mediated through images". The exhibition pre=
sents the work of artists who, by avoiding placing themselves in a position=
of competition with the predominance of the image and the transformation o=
f reality into spectacle, opt for transversal paths, with works that infilt=
rate the folds of reality and bring to light its contradictions, revealing =
its weak points to suggest a different interpretation.





In this sense the artist adopts strategies characterised by radical attitud=
es: secrecy, infiltration, parasitism, negation, excess. This sub reale is =
thus formed of the leftovers of reality, where the value of experience is r=
estated in a process of radicalisation and of excess, the image is negated,=
taken apart and short-circuited, the figure of the artist is concealed unt=
il it is no longer recognisable.

The artist thus takes on the features of a clandestine intruder forced to i=
magine and invent strategies for survival in the face of a reality that ten=
ds increasingly to limit and ignore the space for personal reflection and t=
he value of the individual.





Eight fundamental concepts form the key to reading of the exhibition:

a series of texts downloaded from the Internet form a conceptual accompanim=
ent to the works of the artists and provide starting points for reflection =
for a path through the meanders of identity made up of extremely different =
elements, where true and false, high and low culture, real and imaginary, i=
ndividual and collective are mixed together without excluding each other. A=
n identity constructed through elements found and recomposed that make it m=
ultiple, flexible, and adaptable, almost impossible to recognise and identi=
fy.



Sponsored by: Adriano Olivetti Foundation - Rome, Gemeente Amsterdam, Ment=
rum, Mondriaan Stichting, Brand Bier, Beam Systems.


Self consciousness - mental location - anonymous communication - Natural Co=
ndition of Mankind
integration/disintegration - self control - (distr)action - loss of identity








For further information please contact Jacco Musper, tel +31 20 427 5951 or=
jacco@smartprojectspace.net



SMART Project Space | www.smartprojectspace.net
Exhibition Space & Cinema: 1e Const. Huygensstraat 20
Opening times: Tues-Sat from 12.00-22.00, Sun from 14.00-22.00 hrs.
Mail to: P.O.Box 15004, NL-1001 MA Amsterdam
Phone: +31 20 427.5951
Fax.: +31 20 427.5953
mail: info@smartprojectspace.net
















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