Studio Orta

Lucy + Jorge Orta are pleased to present their second solo show at the Galerie Valérie Bach, Brussels.

In this exhibition, two series of works are brought together for the first time, uniting three-dimensional works with paintings in order to shed light on their creative process.

The first section of the exhibition is based on cell —cell of life, cell of habitation— at the core of their thinking. Inspired by cell biology and the process of differentiation, the Totipotent Architecture series is composed of hand-blown glass volumes, which like embryo cells, expand to create new spaces of habitation within the steel architectural silhouettes. The artists go a step further in their exploration of the cellular infinity with the vitrines Cells diptych, creating a new macroscopic life in intricate Murano blown-glass.

The second part of the exhibition, based on Jorge's pictorial work in the 1970s, when painting was one of his ways of escaping the overwhelming Argentina dictatorship. The exhibited works in the Derrame series, explore the idea of the accident as both a violent moment but also as a random, uncontrolled phenomenon. A three-dimensional aspect of this accidental expression appears in their brand-new series Assemblages where found objects superimposed on the pictorial surface seem placed there­ by the necessity of ordering the immaterial in a chorus between abstraction and reality.

Studio Orta is pleased to announce 70 x 7 The Meal, act XL a dinner for 200 guests taking place in Gillman Barracks in Singapore, on the evening of January 20, 2017.

Under the helm of Cities for People, Ideas Fest organised by the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, act 40 of Lucy + Jorge Orta’s ongoing participative artwork 70 x 7 The Meal, draws from the ancestral ritual of dining together, to create a platform for local communities to engage in discussions that explore and connect food initiatives in the local community.

Leading up to the meal, the artists staged a collaborative workshop with Foodscape Collective Singapore to delve into and examine the concerns about food sustainability in the local and global contexts. Interactive discussions sessions with local chefs, bakers, farmers, gardeners, policy makers, activists and artists generated a range of playful and provocative topics on food production, distribution; identity & culture; and giving & sharing, to exchange with the guests attending the meal.

On arrival at the NTU CCA, guests will be assigned a navigation map that leads to 25 ‘islands of knowledge’, in a unique setting designed by the artists to prompt and perpetuate further art-food-sustainability discussions. The menu, prepared by Chef Misso Russell Keith from Open Farm Community, will continue the 70 x 7 ethos of locally sourcing sustainable produce. 

The husband-and-wife artist team Lucy + Jorge Orta—who in the past 25 years have explored social and ecological issues—focus on consumer food waste and global food distribution in a major show at the City Gallery and Museum in Peterborough. The exhibition examines the couple’s initiatives linked to the “politics of food”, encompassing the rituals associated with eating together. The Art Newspaper

Two new sculptures form the centre pieces to the show. Bread inspired by 70 x 7 The Meal, which took place in Peterborough Cathedral Square in 2015 and during which hundreds of loaves of bread were baked by local residents and then cast into aluminium. Carried aloft by the traditional wheelbarrows, the humble objects cross cultures and centuries reminding us of the ancestral cycles of sowing, reaping and milling, the hand-sculpting of wood and dough to create unique manifestations of our basic human needs.
Drawing from the artists’ expedition to the Peruvian Amazon in 2009, the installation Seeds is composed of 31 unique larger-than-life Murano glass seed pods framed by a collection of intricate watercolour drawings that make up a metaphorical Seed Bank. The intricate beauty and diversity of our natural world is prevalent in the artists’ act of 'preserving' varieties that may be threatened with extinction.

The exhibition also draws together archival work from All in One Basket (1996) and HortiRecycling Enterprise (1999), alongside the entire collection of limited edition Royal Limoges porcelain from the 70 x 7 The Meal series presented on the bespoke silk-jacquard table runners, woven by local Suffolk weavers.

An extensive program of engagement activities around the politics of food, accompanies the exhibition and can be booked through Metal Peterborough.

For the third edition of the Emscherkunst Triennial (June 4 - September 18, 2016), Lucy + Jorge Orta launch a major new commission: Spirits of the Emscher Valley. The Triennial spans a 50-Km trail along the river Emscher, criss-crossing natural parklands and post-industrial landscapes, dialoguing with the changing environment in the Ruhr area. 

For the occasion, Lucy + Jorge Orta have installed three "Spirits" at strategic locations to reveal meaningful interpretations regarding the history of the former coal and steel industries. Since 2012, the artists’ "Spirits" interweave between the medium of performance and figurative sculpture, working as metaphors of the locations in which they are performed or installed, and aim to capture the "soul" of the place. The participative approach – at the heart of the artists work – is essential in the process of the sculptural "personification". For Emscherkunst, Lucy + Jorge Orta worked together closely with residents from the Ruhr area, people who have special connections to the locations, prompting story-telling about their communities.

Installed on the shore of the Phoenix lake at Dortmund-Hörde, Totem with Magpie evokes a new generation who will grow up within this industrial metamorphosis while Bird woman is symbolically linking the East and West side of Phoenix formerly joined by a viaduct. At Kokerei Hansa in Dortmund-Huckarde, a coke plant which closed in the '9Os, the Observer, like an oracle, testifies to the transformation of the landscape: Nature is invading and taking possession of the relics of past.

The new Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester inaugurates with a solo exhibition of the work of Lucy + Jorge Orta, from January 30 to April 24, 2016. The work on show draws a number of intersecting links between the scarcity of resources, species loss, climate change and migration.

The centre piece to the exhibition is Symphony for Absent Wildlife, first commissioned by the Nuit Blanche Calgary in Canada, has been newly adapted to the gallery setting, to create an immersive audio installation experience. The audience encounters an orchestra of masked creatures sculpted from felt blankets, blowing tiny hand-sculpted bird whistles they grasp within their fragile ceramic hands. The musician’s bird song builds up to a dawn chorus with an abrupt censure, leaving the audience with a sentiment of loss.

Unfolding in further galleries are sculpture from the series Life Line, Life Guard and Amazonia that weave a visual narrative, tackling issues of survival, and although many of the works were conceived over ten years ago, they are even more timely in view of recent events.
Objects, vitrines and drawings derived from the artists 2009 expedition to the Peruvian Amazon, recount an oasis of diversity in a state of crisis. At the same time, they restore our focus to the world around us, the beauty of the millions of species both locally and globally that depend on the Amazon for their survival, and to the natural cycles of life and death.

Please join us for the opening in Leicester on January 29, from 6 to 9pm. 

Lucy + Jorge Orta are really pleased to announce their first solo exhibition in New York City at the international reputed Jane Lombard Gallery. From January 14 to February 20, the artists will present Antarctica, with the most representative artworks from this series.  

Along side the signature Dome Dwelling from the ephemeral Antarctic Village installed in Antarctic in 2007 are, Life Line and Drop Parachute as well as numerous watercolour drawings inspired by the artists’ extraordinary expedition.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is Antarctic World Passport Delivery Bureau, a mobile installation recently at the Grand Palais in Paris during the COP21 UN Climate Summit. Visitors to the Antarctica World Passport Delivery Bureau, an architectural assemblage made from reclaimed materials, receive a uniquely numbered Antarctica World Passport and in exchange, pledge to support the project’s principles: to take action against the disastrous effects of global warming and strive for peace.

Since 2008, 55,000 passports have been printed, and visitors to Lucy + Jorge Orta’s exhibition at the Jane Lombard Gallery will be invited to register for their personalized passport edition, and to join this growing community of world citizens. www.antarcticaworldpassport.com

Please join us for the opening in NYC on January 14, from 6 to 8pm.

Uniting world citizens: join the Antarctica World Passport community.

Lucy + Jorge Orta are pleased to announce their participation in the COP21 UN Climate Summit, with the public work Antarctica World Passport Delivery Bureau, which will be installed inside Paris’s iconic Grand Palais, as part of the ArtCOP21 Climate Festival of the Arts.

The Antarctica World Passport project highlights the urgent need to consider the human dignity of people suffering as a consequence of climate change. Tens of thousands of citizens around the world have already pledged their support and signed up for an Antarctica World Passport. During COP21, from 4 to 10 December 2015, thousands more passports will be delivered to visitors attending the Solutions21 exhibition in Paris. Antarctica World Passports will be issued to any individual who wishes to become a member of a world community without borders in exchange for an agreement to protect the environment, respect mankind, and fight for peace.

Antarctica World Passport is part of a much larger research project by Lucy + Jorge Orta, which resulted from their expedition to Antarctica in 2007. Antarctica’s immaculate and peaceful ice landscape has become a powerful symbol of global warming. Geographic transformations and displacement of communities induced by climate change, especially along costal zones or in desert regions are redefining our local and global borders. Climate Change crosses all borders and is affecting every region of the world, without distinction. Faced with this global phenomenon our reaction can also be united without borders. Please join us at the Grand Palais, or online www.antarcticaworldpassport.com

As part of the Conference of Creative Parties, on 6 December at 5pm, ArtCOP21 and COAL invite you to join them at the Gaité lyrique in Paris, for a face-to-face with Lucy + Jorge Orta, moderated by journalist Lydia Ben Yitzhak.

If you happen to be in the Austrian capital for Vienna Art Week, this is your chance to view a fragment of the Antarctic Village in Creating Common Good at the Kunst Haus Wien, from November 17, 2015 to January 10, 2016.

Curated by Robert Punkenhofer and Ursula Maria Probst, the exhibition explores the notion of “common good” – sharing of natural resources, public space and services – lending further urgency to the call for a new public awareness of the notion of commons. Tackling a range of topics from alternative microsystems, gentrification processes and the migration crisis; to criticism of budgetary cuts in education and culture, artists including, Atelier Van Lieshout, Joseph Beuys, Ramesch Daha, Leon Golub, Tamara Grcic, Teresa Margolles, Martha Rosler and Lucy + Jorge Orta, question the creation and use of resources, they suggest alternatives to the established order, and hold themselves to the ethical task of shaping society.

Lucy + Jorge Orta’s Antarctic Village - Dome Dwelling, originally installed across the Antarctic continent in 2007, calls into question issues relating to the environment, politics, autonomy, habitat, mobility and relationships among peoples. Each tent-dwelling, hand stitched with flags from countries around the world, along with extensions of clothes and gloves, is silkscreen printed with a new Article (13.3) for the UN Declaration for Human Rights. Since the wake of the unprecedented migration crisis, and the increasing displacement of communities due to global warming, the Antarctica project is a powerful reminder of the necessity to redefine common good.

Lucy + Jorge Orta are really pleased to announce their participation to Global:Exo-Evolution, a group exhibition co-curated by Peter Weibel, Sabiha Keyif, Philipp Ziegler and Giulia Bini, at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, from October 31, 2015 to February 28, 2016.

Exo-Evolution focuses on the entanglement of art and science, and the artistic use of new technologies that offer a vision of the future. A new reality, shaped by 3-D printers cyborgs, chimeras, gene pools, wearable technologies, synthetic life forms, bionic suits, silicon retinas, artificial tissue, genetic manipulation and quantum physics; is set along along-side solutions such as separating oxygen from CO2 to combat pollution.

Within this context, Lucy + Jorge Orta present Zillie Fluvial Intervention Unit, an immense floating 'water-bar' that displays hundreds of commercial water bottles from around the world. This work raises questions surrounding the privatization and corporate control that affects universal access to water. The fluvial unit is part of the series OrtaWater, which explores through a combination of sculptural experimentation and scientific collaboration, the scarcity of this natural resource, its pollution, the purification processes and methods of re-distribution.

A suspended meeting place, the sky is the agora of our imagination.

Lucy + Jorge Orta will inaugurate their world-famous artwork Cloud | Meteoros in the city of Lille, Friday September 25 at 7pm. Suspended within the Lille Flandres railway station, the monumental installation will welcome visitors to the new edition of Lille 3000 | Renaissance.

From September 26, 2015 to January 17, 2016, five ethereal clouds will float above the 80,000 people who travel to the city each day. The two clouds initially commissioned for London’s St Pancras International inaugural Terrace Wires, will be joined by three new clouds created specifically for the exhibition Renaissance. The new sculptures feature a winged cherub cast from a local teenager, selected by the Lille 3000 committee.

Meteoros is derived from the ancient Greek, meaning ‘in the midst’. Clouds have long been intercessors between reality and the imagination, between heaven and earth, lightness and gravity. They inhabit the skies of Renaissance fresco paintings, often depicted crowded with laymen and prophets, angels and deities. Throughout history, this celestial vault has been a site of conviviality, of learning and exchange. Like their series 70 x 7 the Meal, which invites people to share a meal in public space, Cloud | Meteoros is a public artwork suspended momentarily, like a breath of fresh air.

For press enquiries contact elsa.urtizverea@lille3000.com

After touring the USA, the Museum London, Ontario welcomes the triptych Food Water Life from August 29 to December 6, 2015. This final stop of the exhibition presents three major bodies of work that span close to two decades of collaborative work by Lucy + Jorge Orta. Through sculptures, drawings, installations, and video the artists explore major concerns that define the twenty-first century: biodiversity, environmental sustainability, climate change, and the social economy.

As heirs to the practice of social sculpture, formulated by the German artist and activist Joseph Beuys in the 1960s, the Orta’s works are relics of their own function—captivating assemblages such as the Processing Units and the Purification Factory are, respectively, a platform for the preparation of food and a mechanism to purify water. Other sculptures created as the result of the 2007 expedition to Antarctica, form part of a global effort to amend the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The featured works are metaphors-in-action, imaginative constructions that perform the tasks of which they are emblematic.

Food Water Life was initiated by the Tufts University Art Gallery in 2012, and is curated by curatorsquared. The exhibition toured to the Richard E. Peeler Art Center; Ben Maltz Gallery; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art; Zilkha Gallery.

Following their participation in Glasstress 2013, Lucy + Jorge Orta are delighted to announce their participation in Glasstress 2015 Gotika, a collateral exhibition that will take place at the Palazzo Franchetti, Academia for the 56th Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

The exhibition, lead by the State Hermitage Museum and Berengo Studio, explores how medieval ideas and communication methods have imperceptibly crept into our modern conscience despite our technological advances and how the Gothic concept influences contemporary art. Glasstress 2015 Gotika will combine historical works from the Hermitage collection and newly commissioned art works in glass, all with a Gothic theme.

Commissioned for the exhibition, Lucy + Jorge Orta’s sculpture Arboreal, is an imposing bronze cast from a fallen tree-trunk from which, four exquisite glass seed pods are blossoming. The contrast between the dark patina of the bronze and the ethereal quality of the delicate hand-blown Murano glass, speak of the resilience of nature to overcome the most barren environments.

On May 2nd, ZegnArt celebrated the opening of Expo Milan 2015. For the occasion, Lucy + Jorge Orta were commissioned to create a series of monumental wall murals for the Ermenegildo Zegna global headquarters, forming a stunning backdrop to the performance Symphony of Absent Wildlife and Act XXXVII of their artist dinners, 70 x 7 The Meal. The exhibition Fabulae Naturae curated by Maria Luisa Frisa, will be open to the public on May 10th, 24th and 31st.

The artists transformed the remarkable architecture designed by Antonio Citterio into a forest of immense floral murals reminiscent of the Oasi Zegna. The larger-than-life murals were inspired by the artists’ research undertaken in the Heberlein Fund, a vast printed textile collection conserved by the Zegna Archive. At the centerpiece of the setting is a life-size tree floor drawing, whose branches lead visitors to thefood stations, where the famous chef Davide Oldani served a menu of sustainable delicacies. Choosing timely convivial moments to discuss sustainable issues, Lucy + Jorge Orta have created a limited edition of Royal Limoges porcelain, to provoke debates between guests, and to support the restoration of the Punta Mesco area in Italy. For each artwork sold a row of vines will be planted, bearing the name of each «owner».

For Fabulae Naturae, Lucy + Jorge Orta create a true ode to wildlife. Along side the immense kaleidoscope of murals, the artists staged Symphony for Absent Wildlife, a visual and audio installation, to intensify the feeling of stepping into a fairy tale world, inhabited by fictional creatures of the forest. The three-dimensional sound-scape is conceived as a dichotomy between a ‘false’ orchestra of flutists acting in a symphony for nature and a ‘true’ orchestra consisting of bird whistles. Each musician wears a tailcoat and mask, in the form of a woodland creature tailored from reclaimed felt blankets.

Fabulae Naturae is a new episode of the art and food performances that Lucy + Jorge Orta have presented in cities around the world since 1997, in which they connect art, nutrition and ethical themes. Watch the video clip.

After the resounding success of the exhibition Food Water Life at the Parc de la Villette in Paris during summer 2014, the Richard E.Peeler Art Center at DePauw University inaugurates Lucy + Jorge Orta’s US touring exhibition Food Water Life on February 5th 2015. The exhibition presents three bodies of work that span close to two decades of collaborative work. Through sculptures, drawings, installations, and video the artists explore major concerns that define the twenty-first century: biodiversity, environmental sustainability, climate change, and social economy.

As heirs to the practice of social sculpture, formulated by the German artist and activist Joseph Beuys in the 1960s, the Ortas’ works are relics of their own function—captivating assemblages such as the Processing Units and the Purification Factory are, respectively, a platform for the preparation of food and a mechanism to purify water. Other sculpture created for a 2007 expedition to Antarctica, form part of a global effort to amend the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The featured works are metaphors-in-action, imaginative constructions that perform the tasks of which they are emblematic.

Food Water Life was initiated by the Tufts University Art Gallery in September 2012, and is curated by curatorsquared.
The final leg of the tour will conclude at London Museum in Ontario, Canada from August 29 – December 6, 2015.

Following the exhibition Lens on life which took place in July 2014 at Federica Schiavo Gallery in Rome, Lucy + Jorge Orta’s Cells Diptych is displayed at Lethaby Gallery Central Saint Martins in London from January 20 to February 27, 2015. Marina Wallace, Professor at the University of the Arts London and curator of this exhibition, initiated a series of conversations between artists and scientists. Lens On Life is a project strongly rooted within the field of art and science. Each collaboration intends to portray through contemporary art, a unique interpretation of mitosis, one of the fundamental mechanisms of human life.

Since 2013 Lucy + Jorge Orta have been in discussion with Professor Tony Hyman, eminent mitosis scientist at the Max Plank institute of research in Dresden. Cells Diptych is the result of their encounter with the genetic transformation of the immensely complex structures within human cells. Through dreamy watercolour drawings and colourful, intricate Murano glass sculptures, the artists poetically explore cellular communication, transformation and division.

An important part of the exhibition is the documentary video Meetings of Minds, recording the fascinating process of the collaboration between the artists and scientists.

The exhibition will conclude its European tour at Heidelberg University Museum, from 16th March to 28th April 2015.

The Ben Maltz Gallery in Los Angeles presents Food Water Life Lucy + Jorge Orta's first major exhibition on the West Coast (August 16–December 6, 2014). The artists will be in the Los Angeles gallery to sign their book, which accompanies the exhibition, on Saturday October 25, 3-6pm.

The exhibition presents three bodies of work that span close to two decades of their collaborative work. Through sculptures, drawings, video and installations the artists explore major concerns that define the twenty-first century: biodiversity, environmental sustainability and climate change.

As heirs to the practice of social sculpture, formulated by the German artist and activist Joseph Beuys in the 1960s, the Orta’s works are relics of their own function—captivating assemblages such as the Mexican Kitchen, and the Fluvial Intervention Units are respectively, a platform for the preparation of food and mechanisms to purify water. Other sculptures, including the diptych video projection Antarctica were created for a 2007 expedition to the Antarctic that forms part of an effort to amend the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The featured works are metaphors-in-action, constructions that perform the tasks of which they are emblematic.

This exhibition, curated by curatorsquared and organized by Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, MA, tours to the Richard E. Peeler Art Center, DePauw University, USA (February 5–May 7, 2015) and the London Museum, Ontario, Canada (August 29–December 6, 2015)

Key dates to meet the artists and the curators.

Tuesday October 21, 11:15am Public lecture Otis College of Art & Design, 9045 Lincoln Boulevard, LA 90045
Thursday October 23, 10am Public lecture Otis Graduate Studios, 10455 Jefferson Blvd, Culver City 90230. Map

In conversation with curators Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox, followed by a book signing and reception
Saturday October 25, 3-6pm Ben Malz Gallery, 10455 Jefferson Blvd, Culver City 90230. Map

What will Fashion look like in the Future? Taking a critical view of the current fashion system and showing more than fifty innovative artworks at the cutting edge of art and fashion, the exhibition The Future of Fashion is Now proposes a unique vision of the future.

For this visionary exhibition held at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam from October 11 until January 11 2015, Lucy + Jorge Orta exhibit two flagship artworks that question codes of dress, and provide original interpretations of the cultural and sociological role of clothing.

As an emblem of Orta’s practice Nexus Type Opera.tion – from the Nexus Architecture body of work – emphasizes the notions of the social link or community bond. The work consists of groups of workers-overalls, inter-connected via a system of channels and zippers. The connecting elements of the installation are direct embodiments of the idea of social link a social sculpture, exhibited both within the museum setting or performed within the public sphere.

The short film Wandering, realized during a three-year long study of Roma gypsy communities across Europe, focuses on a dancer’s immense circular skirt that is aroused by the movements of traditional eastern-European gypsy melodies. Through the dynamic and poetical rhythms that blur the bellowing patterned motifs of the silk, Wandering evokes a shared aesthetic without barriers of time and space, deeply rooted in Roma communities.

Opening on October 11 from 1.00 pm to 5.00 pm

For Calgary Nuit Blanche 2014, Lucy + Jorge Orta have been invited to create a majestic outdoor installation and performance in the Olympic Plaza. The artists have imagined a living monument for the late-night Canadian public art festival. Under the title Symphony for Absent Wildlife [Spirits of Alberta] the artists have created a true ode to wildlife, taking the form of a visual and audio installation, and which culminates in a major film in 2015.

In Symphony for Absent Wildlife, the stretcher-bed - an occurring metaphoric object in Orta’s practice - marks a pathway to woodland clearing, composed of weathered tree trunks sourced from local forests, an essential zone for the maintenance of forestry biodiversity. The path is raised above the ground by the means of simple wooden trestles, the kind constructed for chopping wood. In the clearing, we encounter a masked orchestra of Spirits.
Each musician dons a mask, in the form of a creature, and an iconic tailcoat tailored from reclaimed felt blankets, which bears the inscriptions of past warriors and homeless wanderers. These foreboding masked figures represent the spirits of the once abundant wildlife across the Albertan plains: bison, moose, wapiti, wolves, grizzly bears, and eagles.

On the evening of September 20 2014, the music stands illuminate a graphic score, the conductor guides the masked-animal musicians, and the performance commences. An amplified symphony of avian chatter - birdsong - resonates across the city. Man or beast?  Just simple hand crafted bird whistles that replicate the remarkable sounds of nature.

Symphony for Absent Wildlife brings a fragment of the disappearing natural environment, its sounds and the diversity of its fauna, closer to the city.

Nuit Blanche live performances from 7pm to 1am Map 
The Banff Centre, February 2015

Le Havre Ville Monde proposes an excursion across the city of Le Havre through the prisim of major public installation, and two exhbitions by Lucy + Jorge Orta. The Antarctica Flag marks an eyecatching avenue to the contemporary art centres of Tetris and Portique. This visual and symbolic presentation has been commissioned by the Positive Economy Forum 2014, which brings together leaders in the field of social and positive economy.

A monumental one-hundred Antarctica Flags adorn the facade of the City Hall, the Ocean Docks, the peak of Oscar Niemeyer's famous ‘Volcano’ and culminate at the Antarctica World Passport Bureau installed at the entrance of Portique, where vistors are issued with their Antarctica World Passport.

Also at Portique is an exclusive showing of works under the heading Rosario 1973-1984. This body of work, from the archives of Studio Orta includes, Tactile Poems, a Gama Mural, and a performance Chainsaw Concert, created by Jorge Orta in Argentina, during the dictatorial period. A rare opportunity to see work on display for the first time.

At Tetris, on view are the Spirits of Huveaune, minature sculptures and photographies surrounding the creation of five sculptures now installed permanently along the Huveaune valley, Marseille. The exhibition serves as a long-term platform to initiate the project Les Enfants du Havre, to be developed through collaborative workshops with local residents. 

Finally, for the 300 delegates gathered at the Positive Economy Forum, Lucy + Jorge Orta give a new instance to their ongoing work 70 x 7 The Meal. A dinner conceived as an installation, includes a Royal Limoges dinner service created for the occasion in collaboration with one of the last porcelain manufacturers in Europe.

Contact press : Victoire Birembaux

Important dates

• Le Portique: Private view 12 Sept., 6.30pm. Performance Concert de Tronçonneuses 7.00pm. Exhibition 12 Sept. to 08 Nov. 2014
• Le Tétris: Private view 13 Sept., 6.30pm. Exhibition 13 Sept. to 04 Oct. 2014
• Le Havre: Private view 23 Sept., 6.30pm at Pasino Le Havre-Partouche
• LHFORUM / Positive Economy Forum 2014: From 23 to 26 Sept. 2014

We are pleased to announce the exhibition of Lucy + Jorge Orta’s new glass sculptures Cells, at the Federica Schiavo Gallery in Rome, created as a result of an ongoing dialogue with emminent mitosis scientist Tony Hyman.

Tony Hyman works on the molecular mechanism of conserved cytoskeletal processes in the Hyman Lab at the Max Plank Institute of Mollecular biology, he is also part of MitoSys (systems biology of mitosis), a FP7 European scientific research project. Hyman has been in dialogue with Lucy + Jorge Orta since 2013, discussing the transformations of the immensely complex structures of human cells. Reflecting on cellular communication growth, and working together with the glass masters at Berengo Studio in Murano, the artists represent the different stages of mitosis and meiosis. When the process of chromosome division goes wrong, it reeks havoc and leads to incredible, wild and complex three-dimensional structures.

Lucy + Jorge Ortas’ Cells Diptych will be display in Lens on Life, a fascinating exhibition curated by Professor Marina Wallace, which maps a number of dialogues between artists and scientists who portray, each in their own unique way, the fundamental mechanisms of human life – mitosis. The exhibition in Rome is the first of a series of three. Lens On Life will travel to the Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins in London (29 January to 29 February 2015), and Heidelberg University Museum (16 March to 28 April 2015).

An important part of the exhibition is the documentary Meetings of Minds, witnessing the various stages of the collaboration between the artists and scientists.

A symposium will be held at the MAXXI Museo delle Arti del XXI Secolo on the 10 July, followed by the screening of Meetings of Minds.