Hirst's shark on show in Naples
Barock exhibition flanks major celebration of Baroque art
31 December, 12:49
(ANSA) - Naples, December 30 - Britart legend
Damien Hirst's huge tiger shark suspended in a glass tank full
of formaldehyde is among the highlights of a major new
exhibition in Naples.The show has opened on the sidelines of the city's sweeping celebration of the Baroque movement, for which six museums are each hosting shows spanning a period of 150 years, starting with Caravaggio's arrival in Naples in 1606.
But the Barock exhibition at MADRE traces the movement's key themes revisited by some of the biggest names in contemporary art, including Hirst, Jeff Koons, Gilbert & George, Anish Kapoor and Matthew Barney.
Mario Codognato, who curated the exhibition along with MADRE director Eduardo Cicelyn, said their aim was to explore questions ''that can be considered typical both of the 17th century and of our own time''.
''Both periods are characterised by revolutionary scientific and technological discoveries that have completely changed the perception of man in the universe... and by great religious fervour that has often led to fundamentalism and religious wars with unprecedented massacres,'' he said.
But the most obvious similarity between the artists featured in the show and the Baroque masters, according to Codognato, is their use of sensational images that are ''extreme in their violence, sensuality and frankness''.
The National Museum of Modern Art in Paris and London's White Cube gallery as well as private collectors and the artists themselves have loaned works for the exhibit, which showcases 28 leading contemporary artists.
In addition to Hirst's tiger shark, also on display here is his lamb in formaldehyde as well as one of his so-called 'fly paintings', in which he covers canvases with dead house flies, and several butterfly sculptures using real butterflies coated in industrial varnish.
Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, who caused a furore in 2004 after hanging lifelike puppet-children by their necks from Milan's oldest tree, here shows a realistic-looking model of a young woman in a short dress seen from behind in a crucifixion pose, her hands nailed to a white sheet, that's all the more shocking for being on show in a deconsecrated 14th-century church that now forms part of the museum.
Other highlights include Lebanese artist Mona Hatoum's cold furniture, fashioned from enormous steel cheese graters, and photos and sculptures by French artist Orlan, famous for turning plastic surgery into performance art in the 1990s when she underwent operations to give herself features such as the chin of Botticelli's Venus and Mona Lisa's forehead.
German sound artist Carsten Nicolai, who features in the show, has also created a large-scale outdoor installation in the city's Piazza Plebiscito, where loudspeakers play sounds created by the real-time seismic activity of nearby Vesuvius - a reminder of the quiet threat the volcano poses to the several million people living beneath it.
For the installation the artist originally tethered three massive helium balloons that hovered 15 metres above the square, but for safety reasons these were almost immediately replaced by three 'fumaroles', from which illuminated smoke billows into the air.
Nicolai's installation, Pioneer II, can be seen until January 10, while the main exhibition, Barock: Art, Science, Faith and Technology, runs at MADRE in Naples until April 5.
