News
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Spécimens: Collections, croisements, sentinelles
- Dates: 25 November 2012, 31 March 2013
- Venue: Domaine de Chamarande
- Country: France
- Type: Group Exhibition
- Artwork: see the project
The Enlightenment gave rise to a systematised, encyclopaedic knowledge of nature attained by methods of collection, classification and empiricism. Artists and scientists alike have since applied this inheritance to the careful circumscription of nature by means of its depiction. For the exhibition Spécimens, the Domaine de Chamarande invites eleven international artists to present the fruit of their confrontations with naturalism. Through the appropriation of scientific approaches to classification, observation and experimentation these artists recompose our representation of the natural world.
Spécimens features Lucy + Jorge Orta’s Perpetual Amazonia, artworks inspired by the artists’ participation in an expedition to the Peruvian Amazon in 2009 with scientists from the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at Oxford University. Peru’s Manu Biosphere Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage site where more than 15,000 species of plants have been recorded and up to 250 varieties of trees can be found in a single hectare. As part of the scientific research, Lucy + Jorge Orta mapped out a one-hectare plot in the rainforest at GPS coordinates S12 48 21.6 W71 24 17.6 in the heart of the Fundo Mascoitania.
Lucy + Jorge Orta’s expedition moved them to conserve this hectare of land in perpetuity as part of their dedication to scientific research and to the benefits we all receive from long-term forest conservation. The Perpetual Amazonia body of work consists of murals of plant species, hand-made fabric flowers, carefully rendered porcelain fragments and enlarged photographs that focus on details otherwise invisible to the human eye. Their experiences have helped shape an exhibition that weaves scientific, aesthetic and cultural paradigms to lend insight into the area’s huge diversity of living organisms and to the space they occupy in the planet’s evolution. -
Food Water Life
- Dates: 22 January 2013, 3 March 2013
- Venue: Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University
- Country: USA
- Type: Solo exhibition
- Artwork: see the project
On January 22, 2013 the Zilkha Gallery at Wesleyan University opens its doors to Lucy + Jorge Orta’s seminal exhibition Food Water Life. The exhibition, which originated at Tufts University Gallery and which will tour the United States, explores how the artists' unique visual language tackles global issues affecting our lives. Three projects spanning close to two decades of collaborative work will be presented: Hortirecyling (1997-2005), OrtaWater (2005-2007) and Antarctica (1990-2009).
Lucy + Jorge Orta’s artwork communicates widely to audiences beyond the field of contemporary art, demonstrating the importance of art as a creative agent for awareness and change. During the next three years, the artists will stage on-location workshops, ephemeral interventions, residencies and master classes that explore the crucial themes of the contemporary world: the community, autonomy, dwelling, migration, sustainable development and recycling.
This exhibition will travel to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University (January 25–May 25, 2014) and Richard E. Peeler Art Center, DePauw University, Greencastle (February 5–May 7, 2015) with other venues to be announced.
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Imaginary Creature—Revealed!
- Dates: 7 December 2012, 13 January 2013
- Venue: Lille Town Hall
- Country: France
- Type: Solo exhibition
- Artwork: see the project
Lucy + Jorge Orta's Imaginary Creature has been revealed!
Over the span of three months, thousands of school children gathered across the eight counties of Lille to participate in archeological digs. Among the Gallo-Roman pottery and everyday objects they unearthed were 80 mysterious bone sculptures, handcrafted and cast in resin. After much suspense, these 80 fantastical bone sculptures (some measuring over 3 meters long) have been reconstituted into the complete skeleton of a fantastical creature now on view at Lille Town Hall until January 13, 2012.
With generous support from the cultural festival lille3000, this remarkable project united children all over Lille and the surrounding region in a search through history and into the unknown. During the digs, children were asked to draw what they thought the Imaginary Creature could look like. Their hundreds of renderings are a powerful testament to the force of imagination.
Imaginary Creature was born out of Lucy + Jorge's Amazonia project and draws from their previous collaboration with the paleontology department of the Natural History Museum London. The project brings together scientists and artists to raise children's awareness not only of the metropolis they share but of a past, both real and imagined, wherein lie the future’s greatest possibilities. -
Food Water Life | Tufts University Gallery
- Dates: 6 September 2012, 16 December 2012
- Venue: Tufts University Art Gallery
- Country: USA
- Type: Solo exhibition
- Artwork: see the project
On September 6, 2012 University Art Gallery inaugurates the first comprehensive exhibition of the work of Lucy + Jorge Orta available to American museums. This exhibition will explore how the artists' unique visual language tackles the global issues affecting our lives. Three projects – Food Water Life - spanning close to two decades of collaborative work, will be presented: Hortirecyling (1997-2005), OrtaWater (2005-2007) and Antarctica (1990-2009).
Lucy + Jorge Orta’s artwork communicates widely to audiences beyond the field of contemporary art, demonstrating the importance of art as a creative agent for awareness and change. During the next three years, the artists will stage on-location workshops, ephemeral interventions, residencies and master classes that explore the crucial themes of the contemporary world: the community, autonomy, dwelling, migration, sustainable development and recycling.
This exhibition will tour to Zikha Gallery, Wesleyan University (January 22–March 3, 2013), Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University (January 25–May 25, 2014) and Richard E. Peeler Art Center, DePauw University, Greencastle (February 5–May 7, 2015) with other venues to be announced.
http://curatorsquared.com/lucyjorge-orta-collaboration/ http://artgallery.tufts.edu/exhibitions/traveling.htm -
Imaginary Creature
- Dates: 6 October 2012, 6 December 2012
- Venue: City of Lille and the surrounding regions
- Country: France
- Type: Exhibition and public engagement program
- Artwork: see the project
This winter the city of Lille unveils a remarkable new commission by Lucy + Jorge Orta Imaginary Creature. Occupying the space between scientific education and artistic revelation, Lucy + Jorge Orta’s artistic intervention united thousands of children around the city in an effort to reconstruct a fabled past to better envision a future.
Over the span of three months, school children across eight counties are invited to participate in archaeological digs. Each site is composed of several layers. The first contains remnants of contemporary everyday life followed by older fragments from downgraded sites (including Gallo-Roman pottery and utensils), all which provide an unprecedented opportunity for study and learning.
Yet beneath these layers of history lies another discovery: handcrafted bone sculptures cast in resin. These bones, monumental in size (the largest is 3 meters long) belong to the skeleton of a fantastical creature. The project will conclude when each of the 80 sculptural bones are reunited at the Lille Town Hall, where the creature’s skeleton will be reconstituted to inaugurate the next phase of Lille Fantastic, the citywide contemporary art festival, which expects over 1 million visitors.
Imaginary Creature / Créature imaginaire. was born out of Lucy + Jorge Orta’s Amazonia project and draws from their previous collaboration with the palaeontology department of the Natural History Museum London. The project brings together scientists and artists to raise children’s awareness not only of the metropole they share but of a past, both real and imagined, wherein lie the greatest possibilities of what is yet to come.
http://www.fantastic2012.com/agenda/?id=434&PHPSESSID=6gm8n2f4qp30ndpbdrmknf2687
