TOMASO DE LUCA / SOMETHING OUT OF IT

We are happy to announce our collaboration with LIAF — Lofoten International Art Festival for the production of Something Out of It, a preview exhibition opening in conjunction with the 59th Venice Biennale. Curated by Italian duo Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, Something Out of It has been conceived as a precursory exploration of the curatorial themes set for the 30th anniversary of LIAF, temporarily uprooted from Lofoten Islands in the Arctic circle to the Venetian lagoon. The project will take place in two venues: a private palazzo and the parlour of a functioning women’s prison.

TOMASO DE LUCA                                                 
Case Chiuse # 15 by Paola Clerico
Location: Casa Venezia
Calle Seconda dei Orbi, 5201 Castello, Venice, Italy.
Opening days: April 18–24, 2022, from 10am to 6pm

In the Castello district Something Out of It  breaks into a domestic environment. The courtyard of Casa Venezia, residence of the collectors Massimo Adario and Dimitri Borri, hosts a new exhibition by Tomaso De Luca (Verona, Italy, 1988), produced in partnership with Case Chiuse by Paola Clerico.
Winner of the 2021 MAXXI Bvlgari Prize, De Luca continues his investigation into the crisis of modernism – as the promise of a functional life for all – and processes of gentrification, linked to socio-natural phenomenons, such as the AIDS epidemic or the most recent climate change.
Consisting of sculptures, photography and a video, the installation debunks the myth of comfort, transforming the house into a treacherous place. Furniture and everyday items are transformed into potentially lethal traps — the activation of such traps being shown through a visual grammar that is both threatening and comical. 
De Luca’s project is inspired by a news story. In February 2019 in Philadelphia, a real estate developer escaped a guillotine device, hidden in one of his properties and designed to kill him.
The artist links this news event to the consequences of climatic gentrification that is sweeping the American city. The violent act is read as an extreme and desperate attempt to resist increasingly brutal economic dynamics.

Video Tomaso De Luca, Desperate Times, 2022
video color, sound, loop, 16’35”
Camera Luigi Ciccaglione, Primo De Santis
Editing Luigi Ciccaglione
Cinematography and Color Grading Primo De Santis
Music and Sound Naemi

PAULINE CURNIER JARDIN
Location: Casa di Reclusione Femminile (women’s prison) Giudecca, 712, 30133 Venice, Italy.
Opening: April 19, 2022, from 5 to 7:30pm. 
Mandatory registration: LIAF@margaretlondon.com 

Something Out of It unveils also a permanent communal installation by artist Pauline Curnier Jardin (Marseille, France 1980) in collaboration with the inmates of the Casa di Reclusione Femminile della Giudecca, an Italian women’s prison located in the former monastery of the Convertite where around 60 inmates now live. Curnier Jardin will reimagine the prison parlour room that connects the women’s prison to the outside world, transforming it into a ritualistic space for meaningful encounters. 

For press inquiries please contact: 
Maddalena Bonicelli maddalena.bonicelli@gmail.com
Grace Gabriele-Tighe grace@margaretlondon.com
Sofia Desbois sofia@margaretlondon.com
Press Kit