“Virus is investigating over the ‘buying bulimia’, that affects the daily-life models and the art world as well.
Liuba went to Bologna Artefiera’s opening dressed with red points. Then she took off them from her dress and put over all the art works exhibited at the fair, creating astonishment, collapse, confusion and funny shock over visitors, gallerists, artists. An ironical reflection over value of works and value of selling.
“In the series called Virus, the artist is a sort of living sculpture. Dressed in a black outfit with red dots, the notorious sold stickers, the artist went to art fairs and placed them under several works under the noses of upset gallerists and stunned visitors. The sold dot is a universal sign that makes the difference. You judge a work in another way if it has been sold. Red dots mean money, power, and often fame. The same performance in Bologna (Italy) and in New York had extremely different results. Liuba’s main interest in doing this provocative performance is the social aspect of the reactions, a sort of anthropological point of view.
The audience’s reaction, in fact, provides a direct and immediate take on a country, a people, and
its issues. At the SOFA, Liuba generated such an angry reaction that she was forced by the Show Management to leave the fair.
In Italy the gallerists at the fair were really annoyed by her, but it was clear to everybody that she was playing with the art system and this provided a degree of entertainment at the same time. Liuba’s works are based on the direct comparison between the artist and the audience, the live performance and the recorded video, the rules and the illegal.”
(Irina Zucca Alessandrelli)
THE SLOWLY PROJECT. ART IS LONG, TIME IS SHORT
Visiting Art Basel with pace and movements perfeclty in slow motion Liuba has proposed an exciting metaphor above the art world and life.
” Bien qu’on ait du coeur à l’ouvrage,
L’Art est long et le Temps est court.”
Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal
Words from the artist: “This work is one of the still-in-progress The Slowly Project series.
Art is short and Time is long has been performed in Art Basel on June 2004 and the video has been finished in July 2009.
The title comes from a Baudelaire Fleurs du Mal line : Bien qu’on ait du coeur à l’ouvrage, L’Art est long et le Temps est court.”.(XI. Le Guignon)
My intention is to focalize on the concept of lenght as a definition of Art. The endless work of research, making, targeting and trying may be longer than one’s life and longer – and deeper – than social art world necessities and musts.
My interest is in visualizing this concept with my body creating two different levels of time.
The video, resulting from 3 days of performance and from 3 different cameraman’s shootings, has been build as a poetry and a ‘moving painting’.
I worked on the editing searching the way to give emotions, aesthetic pleasure and concept.
The video is in loop and I consider this work as a painting in motion to be seen on the wall or in a flat screen on the wall.
This kind of performance required many months of preparation and a long training to reach the control of the body and of each muscle, seeming to be fluid and like a ‘slow motion’ effect.”
More at Liuba’s Homepage or her Vimeo Channel.
