São Paulo – A bit of the lives of the inhabitants who live near the Mediterranean Sea. A bit of the region’s tastes and landscapes. A bit of the angsts of the people. These three sentences define the show “A Abordagem Mediterrânea” (The Mediterranean Approach) which will remain open at Sesc Pinheiros, in São Paulo, up until January 13th next year. Curated and conceived by Adelina Von Fürstenberg, a Turkish-born Swiss citizen of Romanian origin, the show features photographs, video-installations, sculptures and short films by artists from around the world and from different locations within the Mediterranean.
A tour of the show leaves visitors with the feeling of having roamed those lands for a few minutes. The show starts with olive trees, shortly after the guestbook, in the first hall. The Swiss Jacques Berthet photographed the trees and then painted the photos, leaving viewers slightly doubtful about the composition and feeling like they are seeing a sculpture, not a tree in the picture. Berthet photographed olive trees in Spain, Portugal, North Africa, Turkey, Palestine, Israel, France and Italy.
The most colourful face of the show is the sculpture by the New York-based Egyptian Ghada Amer. Using epoxy resin and acrylic, she combined a hundred Arabic words meaning “love,” in their different derivations. The piece is a hollow spherical sculpture made of letters and filled with inner shades of the words which comprise it. Amer wanted to portray the Western image of Arab society, which is regarded as violent, aggressive, and war-ridden.
“The Mediterranean Approach” also features giant photos taken by the Lebanese Ziad Antar in Beirut from 2007 to 2009. The snapshots depict Beirut with an unfinished air, its daily life made of partly-torn buildings, works unfinished: a city whose architecture bears the memories of long-lasting civil war. The show also features a short film by the Moroccan Faouzi Bensaidi, which portrays events taking place in front of a wall in a Moroccan city over a ten-minute span. The actions include a couple fighting and breaking up, and a young lady being blessed.
Spain’s Marie Bovo took impressive pictures of a neighbourhood near a port in Algeria. The photos of a building-laden patio show only the sky and full clotheslines which join the different, poor houses together. The show also includes a short black and white film by the Turkish Huseyin Karabey, about the funeral of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, killed in Istanbul by an ultranationalist, and a video installation by the Albanese Adrian Paci, in which four slow-motion videos depict the preparations for a wedding.
There are also other photographs and artwork which deliver the Mediterranean environment, culture, and at times the Arabic speech to visitors. A total of 14 artists are featured. The show is a project from Art for The World, a non-government organization based in Geneva and Milan. Created by Fürstenberg in collaboration with Thierry Ollat and Anna Daneri, the show has had stints in the Venice Biennale, last year, and at the Marseille Contemporary Art Museum this year. Worth checking out!
Service
Show ‘The Mediterranean Approach’
Sesc Pinheiros
Rua Paes Leme, 195 – Pinheiros – São Paulo
October 6, 2012 to January 13, 2013
Tuesdays to Fridays from 10:30 am to 9:30 pm, and Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 10:30 am to 6:30 pm. Admittance is free
Information: email@pinheiros.sescsp.org.br
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
