STATEMENT: Realities Building
Launched in 2022 as a direct response to the war in Ukraine and supported by ERSTE Foundation, STATEMENT is the fair’s platform dedicated to urgent sociopolitical themes. Through a curated exhibition and public discussions, it aims to confront complex global challenges through the lens of contemporary art.
For 2025, STATEMENT focuses on algorithmic control, digital disinformation, and technological manipulation. The exhibition, titled Realities Building, is curated by Marcella Beccaria.
The exhibition brings together artists from across the globe—many of whom live in different parts of the world by choice or necessity—whose practices articulate the urgency of reclaiming agency in technologically saturated environments.
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Centering on film, sound, and performance, Realities Building explores how artists working with time-based media provoke critical thought and create new frameworks for perceiving reality. The featured works address the entangled forces of surveillance and disinformation, while also offering alternative strategies of resistance and affirmations of individual freedom. |
Agnieszka Kurant, Chemical Garden, 2021, Photo: kunst-dokumentation.com
STATEMENT BY THE CURATOR
In a world defined by war, violence, authoritarian governments, oligarchic powers, racism, social inequalities, and exploitation of resources, the erosion of truth and the rise of algorithmic control contribute to fabricating multiple forms of reality. Focusing on film, video, sound, and performative works, the exhibition “Realities Building” examines how contemporary artists utilize time-based media to propose powerful strategies of resistance and freedom.
In an era in which everything seems to be potentially visible, and paradoxically, it is also more obscure and incomprehensible, Realities Building gathers artworks that promote individual critical thinking within the entangled proliferation of technologies that either produce information or disseminate disinformation. Recognizing art as a major form of knowledge, capable of forging its own independent language and hence generating new thoughts, the exhibition examines how artists raise issues, suggest questions, and open unexpected points of view.
The exhibition brings together artists who live (by choice or necessity) in different places, experiencing a variety of contexts and given realities. In an open itinerary, the selected works address complex issues, from the terror of everyday landscapes torn by war and the media’s role to the ideology of surveillance and individual action, the power of propaganda to stage new realities, and the erasure of history. Exhibited artists also consider the relationship between capitalistic codification and the annihilation of instincts, as well as the fragile balance between the digital, biological, and mineral in collective systems.
The presented works are political not only because they focus on major urgencies or address political themes, but also because they stem from practices that are per se political, traversing given boundaries, geographies, and narratives. Even if the duty of art is not to anticipate the future, the artworks in Realities Building might provide constructive insight into the present and suggest alternative ways of thinking about what could contribute to a better future.
Zhanna Kadyrova, Photo: kunst-dokumentation.com
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Zhanna Kadyrova (*Brovary, Ukraine, 1981), Agnieszka Kurant (*Lódz, Poland, 1978), Armando Lulaj (*Tirana, Albania, 1980), Oscar Muñoz (*Popayán, Colombia, 1951), Cally Spooner (*Ascot, United Kingdom, 1983), and Jonas Staal (*Zwolle, The Netherlands, 1981).
List of Works:
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Zhanna Kadyrova (1981, Brovary, Ukraine) RUSSIAN ROCKET PROJECT, 2022 – ongoing stickers, video without sound Courtesy the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA |
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Agnieszka Kurant (1978, Lódz, Poland) Chemical Garden, 2021 Silicate of sodium, copper, nickel, iron, zinc Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman |
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Agnieszka Kurant (1978, Lódz, Poland) Post-Fordite 10, 2024 Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman |
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Armando Lulaj (1980, Tirana, Albania) CONTROL, video, color, sound Duration: 35min Aspect ratio: 16:9 Courtesy of the artist and DebatikCenter of Contemporary Art |
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Oscar Muñoz (1951, Popayán, Columbia) Distopia, 2014 Courtesy of the artist |
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Jonas Staal (1981, Zwolle, Netherlands) Propaganda Theater, Video Study, 2023 Courtesy Galleria Laveronica, Modica |
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Cally Spooner, (1983, Ascot, UK) Principles, 202343 minutes, 59 seconds Courtesy the artist and galleria zero, Milan |
Photo: kunst-dokumentation.com
STATEMENT takes place with the kind support of ERSTE Foundation.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Marcella Beccaria is an art historian, curator, and author, currently serving as Chief Curator and Curator of Collections at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Turin. Her career began in the United States with curatorial roles at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
At Castello di Rivoli, she has curated and co-curated numerous acclaimed exhibitions, including Claes Oldenburg Coosje van Bruggen (2006), Una stanza tutta per sé (2008), Vito Acconci (2010), La storia che non ho vissuto (testimone indiretto) (2012), Marinella Senatore (2013–14), Jan Dibbets (2014), Gilberto Zorio (2017), and Nalini Malani (2018). She also co-curated L’emozione dei colori nell’arte (2017) and monographic shows on Giovanni Anselmo and Wael Shawky (both 2016).
Beccaria has authored major catalogues, including the first monographs on Roberto Cuoghi, Yang Fudong, and Francesco Vezzoli, and has edited numerous books on Castello’s collections. Her texts have appeared in Parkett, Flash Art, and institutional publications from the Venice Biennale, Guggenheim Museum New York, Museu Serralves Porto, and Kunstmuseum Winterthur. She is also the author of a monograph on Olafur Eliasson.