Ivan Moudov serves as artist and orchestrator of Alberta Pane Gallery’s group exhibition I Wish It Was Mine, open to the public until July 29, 2023
The One Minute Stalker: the beginning of I Wish It Was Mine
Moudov was in charge of selecting the works of his colleagues by precisely choosing from those he wished he had made himself as if they were his own.
The eight international artists chosen, help the viewer to push themselves further to explore their most authentic fantasies, overcoming the limits that reality and everyday life pose.
Upon entering the exhibition, viewers are greeted by Moudov’s own work, The One Minute Stalker, which takes its inspiration from Tarkovsky’s 1979 film. The vision of desire within the film is echoed in the work that after being enjoyed is meant to open to the expectation of being able to make one’s wishes come true.
«I tried to construct the Zone, guiding the search for that mythical place known as The Room.
It is said that anyone who enters the room immediately sees his or her earthly desires fulfilled; however, by accessing it, only those true individual aspirations emerge», Ivan Moudov explains.
Through his work, placed in the initial corridor, the artist allows Tarkovsky’s film to be enjoyed in a unique way, fragmenting the actions into one-minute micro-screens that collectively make up the 161 minutes of the film. With the sound background created by Sibin Vasilev, the artwork prompts the viewer to relate to mental and bodily sensations relevant to the concept of time as well.
Claire Fontaine and the political concept of the time zone
Claire Fontaine is an artist who devotes her work to the political meaning of art, with a particular focus on feminist issues. Active since 2018 in the art sector with a conceptual declination, Fontaine uses the most varied forms of expression, from sculpture and installations to video and painting.
The ready-made is the stylistic hallmark of the art collective founded under the name Claire Fontaine by James Thornhill and Fulvia Carnevale in 2004 in Paris.
For the I Wish It Was Mine exhibition, the installation Untitled (same war time zone) was selected, whose protagonists are two wall clocks marking the same time in the Jerusalem and Gaza zones. Like all Claire Fontaine’s art, this work reflects on the contemporary, capitalist society and global events related to politics.
The audience-provoking installations of I Wish It Was Mine
Starting with the Gelitin collective, their work is one of those that in the context of I Wish It Was Mine place the audience engagement at the center of the piece. The collective’s practice, which expands internationally through performances and installations, is distinguished by works that are cheeky and humorous in nature. Autumn Leaf – The Gelatin Flag (2023) sees the display of these three flags as an invitation for the viewer to consider new perspectives.
In contrast, the participatory installation Observatory #3 is presented by Miná Minov, an artist who focuses his work on the performative and interactive character. The mechanisms that guide his creations, often related to video art, are simple reactions to be implemented physically, with the body.
Do not Look into Gypsy Eyes
The artist is interested in the bodily presence and the way it attracts elements around it, as the gallery specifies. Another video-related work is Do not Look into Gypsy Eyes by Selma Selman, the first Roma student to earn a BFA in the Department of Painting at the University of Banja Luka in 2014.
Already from the title of the piece, its critical value it’s clear, which is based on beliefs about Roma women, who are hyper-sexualized and whose gaze can simultaneously capture and curse. «As a member of this community, as a woman and an artist, I want to provoke the public and draw their attention against discrimination and commodification of the female body», Selma Selman explains.
Between photography and painting, the images in I Wish It Was Mine
Alban Muja is an artist concerned with social, political, and economic transformation with a particular focus on his country, Kosovo, and the Balkan area. Above Everyone is a work in the making since 2020 that reflects on Kosovo’s postwar architectural scenario.
The watercolor depicting this situation highlights the use of those who had lost their homes during the war to build private residences on top of pre-existing buildings without any permission from legal authorities and going against housing codes.
Specifically, this is a depiction of an illegal installation of a house that Muja had placed on the roof of the former Gërmia department store in Pristina. Anri Sala, on the other hand, analyzes the relationship between the sound element and its contextualization in historical and social times through its relation to images and architecture.
Take Over
For I Wish It Was Mine he presents three frames related to his 2017 work Take Over, which was linked to the musical compositions the Marseillaise and the Internationale. Both anthems represented at the time of their creation an important link to the revolutionary aspect and later defined the national hymns respectively of France and the Soviet Union.
Ulay, the performative art pioneer
Between performance art and photography, Ulay is featured in the exhibition I Wish It Was Mine with a series of photographs documenting the theft that the artist himself carried out in 1976. From the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Ulay stole Hitler’s favorite painting, Carl Spitzeg’s The Poor Poet, or so it appears in the Polaroids.
In reality, it was a set-up studied in detail by the artist who had visited the museum and opened a security door earlier to escape. After leaving the museum, the escape continued to the home of a Turkish immigrant in a poor neighborhood in Berlin, where the painting was hung. This piece celebrates Ulay representing the artist’s last personal work before the beginning of his union with Marina Abramović.
I Wish It Was Mine
The exhibition brings together works by eight international artists: Claire Fontaine, Gelitin, Miná Minov, Ivan Moudov, Alban Muja, Anri Sala, Selma Selman, and Ulay.
Galleria Alberta Pane
Venezia, Calle Dei Guardiani, 2403, (Venezia)
Tuesday – Saturday
10.30-18.30
