The Artist and the Stone

Conceived in January 2014, the process-based piece continues the artists’ investigation into the ways people bypass restrictions and limitations in their daily lives, moving through systems imposed on them. The Artist and the Stone speaks of mobility, citizenship, desire and constraint by negotiating the twofold movement of a subject (a performance artist) and an object (a 22-tonne block of stone) from Hebron (West Bank) to Barcelona.

The work originates from In Between Camps (2012), a two-day walk-piece realized in Palestine, following the ground-embedded stone traces of an ancient Roman aqueduct, built to carry water from a Herodian pool (located in the Hebron area) to the ancient city of Jerusalem. The simple daily practice of ‘taking a stroll’ was extended over an expansive and contended territory as an immersive experience concerning geography, history and politics. This search for the ruins from a prior era of colonization was interrupted by the appearance of a giant quarry, literally carving out all layers of and references to geography and history.

The Artist and the Stone emerged one year later, when a colleague -an artist and refugee by birth- expressed his desire to travel from Palestine to Europe in order to develop his artistic practice. Giuliana Racco and Matteo Guidi decided to transform the tension between desire and constraint, manifest in this simple request, by contrasting the process of his movement with that of an object with the same origin: the stone. From its very conception, The Artist and the Stone has catalysed exhibitions, workshops, round tables and pedagogical activities.

For Act 33 in Nivell Zero, Giuliana Racco and Matteo Guidi propose a closing exhibition related to a central phase of the project: the completion of both movements. Starting with In Between Camps, Nivell Zero will host a selection of works tracing the core themes of context, movement, negotiation and desire, giving form to distinct moments of a process that managed to move across strict geo-political limits, while keeping, to this day, its future open.

Matteo Guidi (Cesena, Italy, 1978) is an artist and anthropologist based in Barcelona, working with photography, video and installation.

Giuliana Racco (Toronto, Canada, 1976) is a visual artist whose work moves through drawing, photography, video and installation.

Together Matteo Guidi – Giuliana Raccooperate at the intersection of art and anthropology, investigating complex contexts of more or less closed structures, i.e. high security prisons, factories, and, most recently, refugee camps. Their practices look into the ways individuals or groups manage their own movements through strongly defined systems which tend to objectify them and even induce forms of self-restraint. Reflecting on unpredictable methods of daily resistance sparked by a combination of simplicity and ingenuity, they focus on contexts that are considered marginal or exceptional but, in reality, anticipate more common scenarios.

Their work has been exhibited at Disseny Hub and Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona (E), Centro Cultura de España, Montevideo (UY), Kunstuniversität Linz (A), Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka and Galerija SIZ Rijeka,(HR), Akademie der Künste der Welt Cologne (D), International Academy Of Art Palestine, Ramallah (PS), Fotomuseum Winterthur (CH), SESC de Artes – Mediterrane São Paulo (BR), Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain Strasbourg (FR), and the Center For Design Resarch & Education of Hanyang University Kyunggido, Seoul (KR).

Curator: Herman Bashiron Mendolicchio

http://www.theartistandthestone.net/