On the occasion of the 20th edition of Contemporary Art Day, the Italian Cultural Institute of Cracow is presenting the exhibition “Współczesny Antyk – Contemporary Antiquities” (open to the public until 8 November) featuring artist Quayola and the collaboration of critic and curator Valentino Catricalà.
The event is part of three important frameworks – in addition to Contemporary Art Day, it is part of the Jubilee celebrations of Igor Mitoraj, the great Polish sculptor celebrated this year in Poland, Italy and abroad, as well as Open Eyes Art, a festival of contemporary visual art involving Cracow as a crossroads of European artistic influences.
On 8 October, the event opened with a lectio magistralis curated by Quayola and Valentino Catricalà at the “Jan Matejko” Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, as dedicated to the links between art, science, technology and the present of contemporary artistic research.
Finally, witness the vernissage of “Pluto #F_03_S4”, as realised by Quayola in 2020 as a variation of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s masterpiece “The Rape of Proserpine” at the Exhibition Gallery of the Italian Cultural Institute. This work is an ongoing exploration of classical sculpture through robotic means.
From the classicism of Bernini and Michelangelo to the postmodernism of Mitoraj and the contemporaneity of Quayola’s research into the interplay between the human and machines, between the real and the artificial – this play of contrasts, only apparently conflicting, is condensed in the subtitle chosen for the exhibition, “Współczesny Antyk – Contemporary Antiquities”, offering a reflection on the expressive potential of digital technology in contemporary art.
