The Eye Of The Storm

DAVID CLAERBOUT, JONATHAS DE ANDRADE, ELENA MAZZI / SARA TIRELLI, AERNOUT MIK, LAURE PROUVOST, PILVI TAKALA
CURATED BY SARA DOLFI AGOSTINI
DEVELOPED BY ALEXANDRA PACE
ONLINE, 3 JUNE – 31 DECEMBER 2020

The Eye of the Storm is Blitz’s first online exhibition featuring videos and films by six international artists and collectives invited to rethink and share their artworks in response to the social challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. In the physical galleries, the visiting experience is thematic or chronological and always marked by the specificity of the spaces that make the institution. Blitz is a townhouse which retains most of the traditional features of a local home, from the wooden beams to the Maltese balcony, from the motley tiles to the fireplace. Here, the curatorial display follows a sequence, time follows space, as the public stops and walks in front of most of the artworks. Online, the window is a standard, neutral space without history, and the public is on or off; it is the click that determines the visiting experience. Without time, there is no space, and that is why we decided to prioritize time, for the artworks to be experienced in a sequence that collectively draws the viewer inward to a full understanding of the project. From June 3, one artwork will be available monthly until November, when the last work will be revealed. Then, during the month of December, all previously shown works will be made equally available, including the exhibition catalogue whose texts were edited last May, during the first wave of Covid-19. The exhibition will close at the end of the year, a symbolic date because that is when traditionally a collective contemplation of what we are leaving behind emerges, together with optimism for new beginnings. Wherever we will be then, as we live day by day reacting to fast-changing public health regulations, we hope that The Eye of the Storm will provide food for thought as we progress into the unknown.

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