| Opening: Thursday 28 October 2010, 6pm Officina Giovani – Cantieri Culturali Ex Macelli – Prato, Italy Until 21 November 2010 Monday – Saturday, 3-7 pm Lara Rettondini
Hazem Harb
Juan José Martín Andrés
Loidys Carnero & Yaima Carrazana
|  Loidys Carnero & Yaima Carrazana Self-Amazement, 2010, still da video |
Officina Giovani is presenting THE FEAR FACTOR, a group exhibition of work by five young artists: Lara Rettondini, Hazem Harb, Juan José Martín Andrés and Loidys Carnero & Yaima Carrazana. This exhibition is curated by Alba Braza Boïls.
THE FEAR FACTOR questions an issue that can be found in the history of any political regime, which is how security mechanisms, proposed or imposed by the state, are just making citizens feel more insecure sometimes putting them in an even more dangerous situation.
Some of the works begin from concrete political situations, like Is this your First Time in Gaza?, 2009-2010, by Hazem Harb. In the video a voice asks the viewer this question stated in the title, showing the image of a roadblock. The tone of the question communicates anxiety and fear, creating an atmosphere of insecurity. The video is accompanied by six photographs that show intimate things, transporting the sensation of insecurity from the mass to the individual.
The series Cover, 2010, by Juan José Martín Andrés, starts with the situation created before and during the war in Iraq, another example of how the state attempts to coerce its citizens with fear, in this case the fear of weapons of mass destruction. The drawings by the artist make use of the covers of the Time published in that period, raising questions that reveal the methods used by the government of George Bush to create a situation of uncertainty and fear. All the drawings are shown here for the first time, and one of them has provided the title of the exhibition.
The work by Loidys Carnero & Yaima Carrazana, Self-Amazement, 2010, is like a home video in which a family, on a trip to a lake in Holland, is surprised to find a Russian submarine emerging from the water.
Welcome, 2010, by Lara Rettondini is an audio piece that put together a series of prohibition announcements found by Rettondini in several different public contexts. These interdictions, both singularly and as a whole, create an ambiguous environment for those who are visiting the exhibition and for those who reflect on the content of the exhibition itself.
Finally, Point, 2010, by Lara Rettondini is one of the works that the artist has presented last June for her final show at Goldsmiths University in London. This work consists of a knife protruding from the wall which questions usual safety mechanisms, relying more on trusting people rather than on pre-established rules.
Lara Rettondini
THE FEAR FACTOR exhibition view
photo: Andrea Abati
Hazem Harb
Is this your First Time in Gaza?, 2009-2010
photo: Hazem Harb
Loidys Carnero & Yaima Carrazana
Self-Amazement, 2010
photo: Andrea Abati
Juan José Martín Andrés
serie Cover, 2010
photo: Andrea Abati
Hazem Harb
Is this your First Time in Gaza?, 2009-2010
photo: Hazem Harb
THE FEAR FACTOR exhibition view
photo: Hazem Harb
THE FEAR FACTOR exhibition view
photo: Andrea Abati
Lara Rettondini
Point, 2010
photo: Andrea Abati
Lara Rettondini
Born in Verona, lives and works in London
Lara Rettondini’s work explores the tension in the individual between self and social interface along with the mechanisms of control that mediate between the two. She combines both conceptual and aesthetic rigour across a range of disciplines to investigate the systems that structure and determine social behaviour, and through the re-contextualization of familiar objects and situations, invites subtle shifts in meaning. These realignments suggest hidden possibilities and undermine some of the deep-rooted preconceptions that frame our relation to reality, while also questioning the viability of those frameworks.
Among her most recent exhibitions: Young Gods, Charlie Smith London, London; The Devil’s Necktie, The Woodmill, London; The New Italian Design, Triennale di Milano.
Hazem Harb
Hazem Harb
Born in Gaza, lives and works in Palestina and Italy
Hazem Harb has developed his art practice between Palestine and Italy. His research, informed by his cultural roots, is based on the subjects of war, loss of stability and human vulnerability as a result of the war itself. A perspective of someone who has had the opportunity to experience the particular situation, but also to emerge from it and to continue his training abroad, at the European Design Institute in Rome.
Harb has recently shown work in the exhibitions Made by War, “L. Pigorini” National Prehistoric Ethnographic Museum, Rome; A Patch On My Evil Eye, The Arab-British Centre, London; Gaza 61 + Seoul 59, Young Gallery, Seoul; Is this your first time in Gaza? Hazem Harb 2006-2009, AM. Qattan Foundation, London.
Juan José Martín Andrés
Juan José Martín Andrés
Born in Soria, lives and works in Valencia, Spain
In the last two years, Juan José Martín has been appropriating newspaper headlines, covers of books and magazines, graphic features material regarding political or wartime events happened over the last two decades in the West. The artist attempts to unveil the mechanisms of political manipulation produced through intentional saturation of information. They are real documents, observed and analyzed some time after their production, in order to bring out these processes and to challenge, also in an ironic way, the people behind them.
Recent exhibitions include Fiasco, Galeria Aural, Alicante, Spain; Iraq Slides, Ruler of Darkness, Sala Espai D’Art La Llotgeta, Valencia, Spain; Laissez Faire, CCCE L’Escorxador, Elche, Spain; Jóvenes Artistas de Castilla y León 2007, CAB Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Burgos, Spain.
Loidys Carnero & Yaima Carrazana
Loidys Carnero & Yaima Carrazana
Born in Havana and Santiago de Cuba, live and work in Amsterdam
The both studied at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), Havana, and the Academia de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, also in Havana. Recently they have begun working collaboratively, as a result of shared research based on the desire to recover their capacity to be amazed and to surprise. Therefore their videos focus on just one object and one action, scenes reproduced in real time, with as little manipulation as possible. An idle gaze that raises no expectations, permitting surprise without supplying answers.
Loidys Carnero has been selected for Generación 2008 - La Casa Encendida, Obra Social Caja Madrid and Portugal Arte 10, Lisbon, among other exhibitions; Yaima Carrazana is presently participating in the residency program for artists at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, in Amsterdam, and has shown work in Out of Storage II, Mudam, Museum of Modern Art of Luxembourg; Collection of Fondation Cartier, Tokyo; J´en rêve, Fondation Cartier, Paris; Bienal de La Habana; Gwangju Biennial.
Cantieri Culturali di Officina Giovani
Piazza Macelli 4, 59100 Prato
tel. 05741836753 fax 05741836779