Hotel Londra Palace
10 May - 24 September 2019
Riva degli Schiavoni, Castello 4171, Venice
Ben Brown Fine Arts’ project TRANSFORMER, curated by James Putnam is presented by Hotel Londra Palace Venice & Gervasuti Foundation. It features works by Rob & Nick Carter, Vik Muniz, Gavin Turk and includes Claude Lalanne’s giant red apple sculpture in tribute to the artist who died this April.
Art frequently involves a process of transformation that relates to subject, medium and context. Rob and Nick Carter’s ‘Transforming Series’ use digital animation technology to transform static Old Master paintings with subtly moving images. Their ‘Transforming Nude Painting is a digital recreation of the Venetian Renaissance artist Giorgione’s famous ‘Sleeping Venus’ (c.1510). It blends real-time footage of a sleeping model with a digital rendered landscape where the sky changes according to the time of day. Their other works involve the paradox of animating Dutch 17th century still life paintings with moving elements where flowers and fruits wilt and decay over the course of time in accordance with the reminder of mortality the traditional Vanitas theme.
Works by Gavin Turk and Vik Muniz are concerned with a different notion of transformation - the seemingly alchemic process of changing worthless, discarded, mundane everyday items into fine art. Gavin Turk’s ‘Pete’ comprises a realistic painted bronze sculpture of a squashed plastic water bottle displayed in an elegant museum style vitrine.
Vik Muniz’s photographs are created from his collaboration with garbage pickers, who collect recyclables from Rio de Janeiro’s vast rubbish tip which are arranged into versions of famous historical paintings.
