Bienal de Valencia
castellano/valencià/english
.BIENAL DE VALENCIA 2001:
“LAS PASIONES” (PASSIONS)
The Biennial of Valencia had a “mass baptism”. A total of 227.831 visitors participated in the first Biennial. It came to existence due to the vocation of transforming the city in a cultural centre known all over the word. The event aimed to help Valencia to overcome its old provincial complexes and to turn it into an enclave serving as a meeting point for all arts.
The first Biennial was dedicated to the topic of “Las Pasiones” (Passions) and approached both the bad sides and merits of human behaviour. It was opened on 10 th of June 2001 in L'Hemisfèric in the City of Arts and Sciences with a concert of Carles Santos and a show of “ La Fura dels Baus”. More than 230 participants: artists, architects, designers, fashion designers, musicians, photographers, movie and theatre directors, actors, dancers, advertising agents, critics, writers and poets from all over the world presented their works of art. In many cases they made their works especially for this occasion. This is a speciality of the Biennial of Valencia, which does not occur in other similar events.
The artistic creations could be seen in six different places: in the monastery “ Convento del Carmen”, in “ Almudín”, the “Gallera”, the Monastery of San Miguel de los Reyes, the “Reales Atarazanas” and in IVAM. There were also some events and performances in other parts of the city like in “Hemisfèric” in the City of Arts and Sciences, in “Plaza de la Virgen”, in “Tinglado” number 2 of the Port, in the Botanical Garden and in “La Nave del Puerto de Sagunto”
In the area of culture, the Biennial's intention is to give Valencia the energy of the most significant contemporary “new talents” in an international exhibition. It cross-examines the possibilities of creative communication between art, architecture, design, movie, theatre, television, photography, dancing, fashion and publicity. Also, intends to show ideas, topics, images, investigations, and projects created by the greatest exponents of international creative culture, innovators of both form and contents capable to transmit this interdisciplinary idea considered as maybe the most significant product of the moments in which we are living.
At the strategic level, the objective was to organise a completely new, open cultural operation, which is provocative both because of its topic and of the selected experimental channel with spectacular representations. It was a high level international project due to the very popular artists and speakers who participated in the event. It was a manifestation centred on communication.
Regarding marketing, the event was created as an intention to transmit a more ambitious and important image of Valencia to the whole world: A capital of expressions in the era of communication and information, controlling its productive and contradictory character.
These objectives were completely achieved. The exhibitions, different spectacular events of the first Biennial of Valencia and the interest it caused all over the world through the transmission of the communication media, offered a coherent representation of all this at a very high level.
In its first Biennial Valencia strengthened its position internationally by the novelty and originality of its form. It has created its own place drawing the attention to the panorama of international manifestations of contemporary culture. That is why the Biennial entered in the European “ grand tour “ of important cultural events. No doubt, it was the most commented international manifestation of art in 2001.
From the beginning, the Biennial has been concerned with a positive process stimulating the creative layers of the city and its cultural, professional and commercial products. It is evident that the city is in an important strategic moment of cultural marketing capable of continuing the launching of its image to the interior part of the country and to European and international scenes.
EXPOSITIONS OF THE BIENNIAL
La navaja en el ojo (Pocket Knife in the Eye)
Hemisfèric - City of Arts and Sciences
La Fura dels Baus
Daniela Cattaneo
Lida Castelli
Inserted in the mixture of music and movement, the representations of Laziness, Fury, Avarice, Greediness, Lust, Envy, Haughtiness follow each other dressed by famous fashion designers. In the metaphor the pocketknife represents Fury . It is the anticipation of violence and provocation. On the other hand, the eye represents the classicism of fashion which is very cautious without having too much humour when it has to do with its own image.
El cuerpo del arte (The Body of Art)
Convent of Carmen
Achille Bonito Oliva
Peter Greenaway
Denis Santachiara
Peter Bottazzi
Presented the works of 100 artists of great international prestige. Among them you could see the virtual works of thirty artists selected by Paolo Vagheggi for Kataweb.
El espíritu de la palabra (The Spirit of the Word)
La Gallera
Scanner (Robin Rimbaud)
In the Gallera, an old building where people celebrated cock fighting, listened to the magic and evocative sounds of Valencia – memory of other moments and other lives.
Antropofonías (Anthropophonies)
La Gallera
José Antonio Orts
It is a choreographic-musical show where sonorous and visual representations merged in an intimate and essential way. Through a sonorous and photosensitive scenography the music appeared spontaneously from the gestures and movements of the dancers.
Los cuatro jinetes (Una tierra que mira a un continente)
The Four Riders (Soil looking at a Continent)
El Almudín
Emir Kusturica
Mladen Materic
An installation / performance for which the soil, the real main character of the exposition was transported in trucks directly from Belgrade.
Las noches del bien y del mal (The Nights of Good and Bad)
Tinglado number 2 of the Port
Shiro Takatani
The summer nights of Valencia were filled with a performance made of sounds, sensations, shadows and movements. You could also see the magic sculptures of fog of Fujiko Nakaya.
Russian Madness
Las Reales Atarazanas
Robert Wilson
Viktor Misiano
A group of young Russian artists representing different artistic areas showed the moment of new Russian art.
Líneas de fuga (Poética de la perplejidad)
Lines of Escaping (Poetry of Perplexity)
San Miguel de los Reyes and Botanical Garden
David Pérez
It was a great show dedicated to artists of Valencia “under 35” of different artistic areas. Dancing, poetry, painting and sculpture were proposed by these very young and committed artists of Valencia. The scenery of the Biennial serves to show these new talents.
La Bienal móvil: Videorom y Videoroad (The Mobile Biennial: Videorom and Videoroad)
Squares and streets of Valencia
Massimo Tommaso Mazza
Droog Design
Cristiana Perrella
Blanco Añó – Pistolo Eliza
Two parallel alternatives were presented in the streets and squares of Valencia focusing on Video Art, Videoroad and Videorom.
Fanfàrria – 11.509 notas para 2001 músicos (Fanfare – 11.509 notes for 2001 musicians)
Hemisfèric - City of Arts and Sciences
Carles Santos
Inauguration concert in the City of Arts and Sciences with 2000 musicians plus 1, the composer and director Carles Santos.
Fundación de la C.V. Bienal de las artes
c/Correos nº 3 3º Puerta 6 Valencia - 46002
prensa@bienaldevalencia.com
Telf. +34 96 353 08 99 - Fax. 96 352 03 82