The Rape of Venice

THE RAPE OF VENICE
Andrea Morucchio Installation
>>> Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo, Venezia, June 5 - November 22, 2015

Curated by Vittorio Urbani >>> Nuova Icona & Matteo Bertelè
The installation project is part of MUVE Contemporaneo for Biennale Internazionale d’Arte 2015
Project manager Marco Vidal

>>> Catalogue with texts by Matteo Bertellè, Vittorio Urbani, Marco Vidal

Sound Francesco Gibaldi, Video: Emanuele Basso, Graphic design: >>> Sebastiano Girardi Studio, Fragrance creation: Maurizio Cerizza Atelier Fragranze Milano, Flooring print Gruppo Fallani, Multimedia set up We Exhibit srl

The Rape of Venice is the title of a multimedia installation project by the venetian artist Andrea Morucchio. It is part of MUVE CONTEMPORANEO, an exhibition involving the languages of contemporary art that the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia will display in its Museums during the Biennale Internazionale d’Arte 2015. 

It involves a multimedia installation in Palazzo Mocenigo, Venezia comprising different elements such as, an overlaid printed floor, an audio track, video projections, and the diffusion of a fragrance.  

Through the synergy of a series of heterogeneous elements, in terms of technique and language, The Rape of Venice encourages the public to reflect on the present conditions confronting Venice today, its decline, and its relentless transformation into a theme-park for millions of tourists. 

As a Venetian, indignant about the situation Venice finds itself in, I take this opportunity offered by MAVIVE and the Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia to analyse through the language of contemporary art the decaying of Venice. The Rape of Venice, far from being didactic and propagandist, intends to elicit feelings of suspension, instability, bewilderment, and generate an awareness and empathy regarding the theme of this artistic project. It seeks to achieve these responses by totally immersing the viewer in the exhibition spaces. 

The project was conceived as a means to direct the different senses of the viewer towards a desired climax: the Scent of Venice. Perfume represents hope, hope to end the destruction of the city, a process captured in the visual, tactile, and audio elements of the exhibition. 

In this manner, hope has the “ freezing seaweed,” as Brodsky said. This smell is the profound, original essence of this city, rising form the sea as Venus Anadyomene. This characteristic scent reminds us of the true nature of Venice. Unchanged over the years, its architectural fabric is the counterpart to all the massive changes that are jeopardizing the existence of its amphibious civilisation. The atavistic smell of seaweed is a sensorial metaphor signalling the hope that a sustainable future can be found once again for Venice. 

With its intrinsically political nature, along with its multimedia and interdisciplinary characteristics, this artistic project is in tune with the theme of this year’s forthcoming Biennale, All the World’s Futures. As the curator of the Venice Biennale 2015, Okwui Enwezor, said: “This Venice Biennale will be ambitious, confusing, political and, yes, sensual, visual, and literary. It must provoke experiences, it must try to create a different relationship among art media. It must create new intersections."

Main Sponsor MAVIVE Parfumes Venezia | Patronage Regione del Veneto, with the contribution of Accademia del Profumo Milano, in collaboration with Atelier Fragranze Milano

..."Like The Rape of Venice, a powerful multimedia satellite installation by Andrea Morucchio that pushes back against tourism’s degradation of Venice’s delicate but sustainable urban culture, Indigenous Voices dramatizes the peril of marginalized languages and highlights the harmonious co-existence modeled by tribal communities within their natural surroundings".... by George Fishman | Miami Herald September 11, 2015

"Oppure basterebbe entrare in un museo, che a Venezia significa di solito entrare in un luogo vuoto e silenziosissimo, anche a luglio. Pochi giorni fa alla curatissima mostra Portable Classics della Fondazione Prada c'ero solo io. Così al museo dell'oasi Querini Stampalia, al Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo, persino alla Ca' d'Oro i visitatori sono in numero limitato. E proprio a Palazzo Mocenigo si può ammirare, in occasione della Biennale, l'opera di un veneziano, Andrea Morucchio, intitolata non a caso The Rape of Venice (Lo stupro di Venezia)". by Ombretta Frau, Huffingtonpost, July 20, 2015