Pavilion Lautania Valley, Foreigners Here And Elsewhere Ray Johnson Retrospective “NOTHING / NOIHTNG”

[Giovanni Bonanno]

Pavilion Lautania Valley

Foreigners Here And Elsewhere

Ray Johnson Retrospective “NOTHING / NOIHTNG”

Presentation by Sandro Bongiani

with the collaboration of Coco Gordon

6 Retrospective exhibitions are presented coinciding with the theme "Foreigners Everywhere" and simultaneously with the 60th International Venice Biennale 2024

The Sandro Bongiani Arte Contemporanea Gallery is pleased to inaugurate the retrospective exhibitions of 6 artists selected for this particular event which officially begins on April 16th with the pre-pop American artist Ray Johnson and will continue from month to month until November 24th 2024 with Guglielmo Achille Cavellini, Ryosuke Cohen, Reid Wood and finally with the Italians Gabi Minedi and Raffaele Boemio presenting for each artist significant works chosen specifically for this particular event dedicated to them. After the exhibition of the international project entitled “LiberaMente / Is Contemporary Art a Prison?” curated by Sandro Bongiani, officially presented on 2 October 2023 at the Sandro Bongiani Vrspace Gallery here is a series of other important events on the theme of the foreigner everywhere, namely "Stranieri Qui e Altrove - Foreigners Here And Elsewhere", in which the condition of several active marginal artists who in an original and solitary way continued to work in collective isolation, some even for several decades without caring at all about the market and the official art system, producing over time works that in some ways did not conform to the dictates imposed by the market and continuing on a conscious, solitary and personal journey. Furthermore, the retrospectives of six contemporary artists will be presented from 16 April to 24 November 2024 at the Pavilion Lautania Valley: Ray Johnson / from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 23 May 2024, Guglielmo Achille Cavellini / from Friday 24 May to Tuesday 2 July , 2024, Ryosuke Cohen / from 3 July to Saturday 10 August 2024 Reid Wood / from Sunday 11 August to Saturday 14 September 2024, Gabi Minedi / from Sunday 15 September to Friday 19 October 2024 and finally Raffaele Boemio / from Saturday 20 October to Saturday 24 November 2024. Instead of a generic theme chosen by this biennial, we preferred to highlight the difficult and marginal active condition of 6 artists from different generations and latitudes of the world forced to live as "always foreigners", not simply in the geographical sense of the term but above all human and existential. Here is a sort of convinced rereading of the current proposals presented for the occasion in a completely virtual pavilion, with an imaginary area of 3 rooms at the Pavilion Lautania Valley in which 6 artists were involved in as many retrospective exhibitions in a lucid and evocative journey, each with its own specific personality and creative intensity for global sharing via the web at 360 degrees throughout the world with low CO2 emissions.