EVGENY ANTUFIEV
When Art became part of the Lanscape: Chapter I
June 16 > November 4, 2018
At times we cannot separate art from landscape.
As Roman statues became part of the landscape
and Etruscan vases part of the subterranean world;
marble columns grow like trees,
Mounds become hills.
The domes of Russian temples look like mushroom colonies,
Scythian stone statues protected the steppes.
Sight perceives ancient art as part of the landscape
like lakes, rivers, mountains and valleys.
Ancient art is organically built in the universe and becomes part of it. (EA)
The regional Archaeological Museum Antonino Salinas in Palermo, in collaboration with the Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, presents a solo exhibition of the Russian artist Evgeny Antufiev: Evgeny Antufiev. When Art became part of the Landscape. Chapter I
The exhibition, curated by Giusi Diana, marks the collaboration between one of the most prestigious archaeological museums in the Mediterranean area and an important Italian private cultural institution devoted to contemporary art which was the first to bring the artist in Italy with a large exhibition in 2013 and continues to support his research.
The exhibition has been included in the Collateral Events of Manifesta 12 and represents an ideal link with the last edition of Manifesta 11, held in Zurich in 2016, where Antufiev, invited by curator Christian Jankowski, showed the complex installation, Eternal Garden, in Wasserkirche near Helmhaus and other works in the first floor of Löwenbräukunst.
The Archaeological Museum Salinas, the oldest in Sicily, is the most important public museum institution devoted to Greek and Punic art in Sicily. As stated by Francesca Spatafora, the Museum director: “The purported detachment between the art from the past and the art of the present is only a misperception. As archaeological museum we guide visitors towards the erasing of this bias through the works of contemporary artists helping us to redefine the relationship with the artworks from antiquity through a novel awareness.”
This statement is in line with Antufiev’s words: “Only our obstinate will to discover something new, to feel different from what has preceded us, makes us believe that there are an ancient art and a contemporary art. Perhaps there are dead artists and living artists […] but art is exactly what goes beyond the artist, his mere existence. Art is, in essence, only the work.”
The show is realized in collaboration with Collezione Maramotti.
Silvana Editoriale, Milan; Museo Carlo Zauli, Faenza; z2o Sara Zanin Gallery, Rome; Coopculture Sicily have also supported the project.
