SPHERICAL SYMMETRY

3-Day Series of Performances, Film Projections & Drawings
Off-Site project, 76th Venice International Film Festival
August 27- 29, 2019
Performances: 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Projections: 9:30pm – 5am

ARTI3160
Salizzada Malipiero, San Marco
3209/A – 3160
Venice, Italy

ARTI3160 is excited to present SPHERICAL SYMMETRY, a three-day series of performances, video projections and an exhibition of drawings during the opening of the 76th Venice International Film Festival. Curated by Claire Zakiewicz and Laura Vattovaz, each performance will feature an inter-disciplinary dialogue and exchange between an international collective of artists: Jana Astanov (Poland), Katie Cercone (USA), Anita Cerpelloni (Italy), David Jason Williams (USA) and Claire Zakiewicz (UK).

SPHERICAL SYMMETRY examines traditional ideologies of cosmology, shamanic techniques, occult symbolism and traces early tribal archetypes alongside sacred geometry. Continuing Zakiewicz’s investigations with conceptions of improvisation, each performance will indirectly ask: “how can we draw interesting parallels between the macro-languages of music and art over the centuries and the evolution of our understanding of the universe,” & “can today’s artists be perceived as shamans possessing the power of accelerating humanity’s evolution in consciousness?” Zakiewicz says. “Our physicality is our cosmic home. Each line is drawn with attention to the body and to the drawing itself and our interactions outside of ourselves whether verbal or experiential, moment-to-moment.

ARTISTS

Jana Astanov is a multidisciplinary artist, living in New York. Born in Poland she studied anthropology, philosophy and linguistics in France, and arts in the UK. Her work includes photography, poetry, performance, new media and installation. She describes her performance art practice as “mythology vs ideology” referring to her two main interests the political & economic foundations of our civilisation and mythological/ religious values. In her work she utilizes shamanic techniques, spiritual beliefs, dance movement derived from the Grotowski technique, she also merges poetry with performance practice and sound art. She published four collections of poetry: Antidivine (Undergroundbooks.org), Grimoire, Sublunar, and Birds of Equinox (Red Temple Press). She is a founder of Creatrix Magazine.

Katie Cercone “High Prieztezz Or Nah”is a visionary artist, scribe, prieztezz and spiritual gangsta hailing from the blessed coast. Cercone has performed or shown work in exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum, Whitney Museum, Dallas Contemporary, Momenta Art, C24 Gallery, Changjiang Museum China, Dodge Gallery and Aljira Center for Contemporary Art. She has published critical writing in ART PAPERS, White Hot, Posture, Brooklyn Rail, Hysteria, Bitch Magazine, Utne Reader and N.Paradoxa. With her collective Go! Push Pops she was awarded the Culture Push Fellowship for Utopian Practice in 2014. Her work has been featured in Dazed, MILK, Interview, Japan Times, Huffington Post, ART 21, Hyperallergic, PAPER, Art Fag City, Washington Post, and Art Net TV among others.  Cercone has curated shows for Momenta Art, KARST (UK), Cue Art Foundation and NurtureArt. She is co-leader of the queer, transnational feminist collective Go! Push Pops and creative director of ULTRACULTURAL OTHERS Urban Mystery Skool. Cercone was a 2015 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow for the U.S.-Japan Exchange Program in Tokyo (JUSFC).

Anita Cerpelloni is an architect-artist-designer and the founder of ART3160, Venice. Cerpelloni studied traditional and experimental techniques including, printmaking, calligraphy, drawing techniques, engraving and painting. She further developed her skills while travelling in Japan where she absorbed ancient Japanese techniques giving new life to her artworks as well as sharing her knowledge through workshops in Venice. As a designer she was selected to exhibit her geometric paper lamps during the Venetian design week in 2018 and collaborated with glass artisans for the glass museum in Murano in 2016. Anita has been running Paper Project Venice since 2012, which puts ‘nature’ as a total reference to her professional and artistic activities.

For over twenty years, David Jason Williams a.k.a. U.N.D.A.K.O.V.A. (Universe. Naturally. Delivers. All. Knowledge. Of. Vitality. Automatically) has been awakening audiences with his special brand of insightful & knowledge infused hip hop. Urban monk and teaching artist, his seasoned background in yoga and meditation has allowed him to develop a yoga hip hop curriculum for urban youth through the non-profit BEAT GLOBAL. UNDAKOVA believes self-love and artistic expression are the ultimate tools for empowering communities.

Claire Zakiewicz is a British inter-disciplinary artist working across drawing, film, sound and performance. Zakiewicz’s practice explores the physical and metaphorical relationships between sound and drawing. It is a scientific and philosophical practice-based enquiry – thinking through making. Zakiewicz re-examines the pictorialization of space and the intimacy of exchange. Her animated films have been shown at Alive In the Universe for the 58th Venice Biennale, 2019 and at Tate Tanks and Tate Modern (London) in the exhibitions Tweet Me Up, and Label, 2012. Zakiewicz has exhibited regularly throughout the UK, USA, Italy and Norway and has produced and performed in numerous productions and international institutions including Resonance FM (UK); ARTI3160 (Venice, Italy); USF (Norway); Bill Young’s Dance Studio (NYC); Mothership NYC; Last Frontier NYC and Itinerant Performance Arts Festival (NYC). Zakiewicz lives and works in London, UK and New York, United States. Zakiewicz writes for the publications Creatrix Magazine, Art511 Magazine and Hypocrite Reader.