“Hybrid Body - Poetic Body”
8–13 December 2012, Palazzo Bembo, Venice
“Ritual Body - Political Body”
13–20 December 2014, Palazzo Mora, Venice
“Extreme Body - Organic Body”
December 2016, Palazzo Mora, Venice
The Venice International Performance Art Week is an ongoing independent, non-profit, non-commercial and non-funded biennial curatorial project by VestAndPage, conceived in the form of a trilogy. Organized in collaboration with Studio Contemporaneo, Venice Open Gates, We Exhibit, GAA Foundation, it is made possible by the logistical cooperation of enterprises such as Concave, Riviera, Daily Press, and cultural institutions that share its mission, i.e. Bonotto Foundation and Alumnos47 Foundation.
It is a live art exhibition project of a different kind—seminal, and not a festival. The format consists of an exhaustive exhibition of historic and contemporary performance art documentation through installations, photography and video, alongside a dynamic series of live performances, round tables, and a learning program. Since the artist’s own body is the primary medium, the event steps beyond conventional borders of exhibiting.
The live performances, many of which are durational, generate an art factory climate inside the rooms of a Venetian palazzo where both artists and audience, engaging directly, become responsive to each other and position themselves empathically: everything becomes matter from process and presence.
A fundamental part of the project is the promotion of a performance art workshop series throughout the year both in Venice and abroad, in cooperation with independent cultural associations, public institutions, universities and academies. The aim is to facilitate the learning of performance art through the discovery of a creative need as a way to express profound social urgencies and personal authenticity, focusing on the dialogue that may arise from the past experiences of performance art pioneers and the most current trends.