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The Venice Biennale is celebrating its 54th edition and will open the Pavilion Chile with an exhibition by Fernando Prats, an eclectic and innovative artist, who has printed a change in the contemporary painting. The Chilean artist, who was actually born in Buenos Aires in 1967, has been devoted to art from an early age. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Chile in Santiago; he did a specialization in painting at the Massana School and a graduate course at the University of Barcelona, city in which he decided to establish since 1990.
His works have been exhibited at the most important contemporary art centers in the world. Those works belong to different art centers and museums such as the Fundación Caixa de Manresa, the Kolumba, Kunstmuseum des Erzbistums Cologne and Würzburg Diozesan-Museum (both in Germany), as well as the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago de Chile.
The project carried out for the Venice Biennale will be installed in the arsenals of the ancient city, which is one of the most visited during the Biennale. “Gran Sur” is the title of this installation that consists of three works: the first is a creation inspired by the impact of the volcanic eruption that took place in 2008 in Chaiten, the second proposes a series of pieces that allude to the earthquake last year in Chile, and the third is an installation in neon letters that retrieves the announcement of the Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1911, in which he wanted to enlist men for his expedition to Antarctica: “men wanted for risky journey, little pay, extreme cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success”.
It is worth to mention that Prats went on expedition to Antarctica with the intention of commemorating the centenary of Shackleton in March. During this trip, aboard the Navy´s icebreaker “Almirante Viel” on Elephant Island, he published again the same message.
One of the reasons for which the artist is famous, it is because he has initiated a “new way of painting”, as noted by Paul Ardenne art theorist, who decided to include Prats in the exhibition Espace Louis Vuitton in Paris due to his ability to produce pictorial images from smoke.
Fernando Prats conducts research from artistic photography, poetry, design, music, video and other disciplines, particularly focused in the intersection of words and their representations. He is the creative director of Estudi Prats and director of the magazine of contemporary culture “Y Sin Embargo” from the group “Rhizome” and other projects being developed in the Web 2.0.
menschauser
So, don`t miss the opportunity to attend the show “Gran Sur”! We recommend you to rent apartments in Venice and come to walk through the smoke spaces and facilities of this exciting artist.
