SMATCH SMATCH  has been chosen to administer funds to assist Marya Kazoun's installation at the 2005 Venice Biennale

Marya KazounMakes Space at the 2005 Venice Biennale The 51st Venice BiennaleInternational Art Exhibition, which opens June 12th, 2005, is one of the most comprehensive of its kind. This year it will feature works by New York based Lebanese-Canadian Artist Marya Kazoun.

Click image for a picture of Marya Kazoun with another of her works.

NEW YORK (PRWEB) May 8, 2005 -- The 51st International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale, one of the most comprehensive of its kind, will feature works by Lebanese-Canadian artist Marya Kazoun living in New York, opening June 12th 2005. The artist plans for an Installation and Performance piece of magnificent proportions entitled Personal Living Space, which will engulf the senses and rattle the mind.

The installation is formulated around the central idea of personal space and is rooted in an emotional transcendental vision developed from the inside out. "Personal Living Space" functions as an incubator for Kazoun's own psychological aspirations, one that eliminates awareness to the flow of time and pads the horrors of the outside by opening a door to a safe haven.

From between two gallery windows threads start to lift with ease from canvases and giant rings hanging in space begin to stitch themselves into the skin of everyone passing by or standing outside, pulling them sinew by sinew into her personal living space. Marya is sitting there amidst the different layers. She is weaving. "What are you weaving?" "I can tell you about the intricate weavings of different cultures. I will weave for you, if you let me." She is there (Petrified!) and petrifying the viewer like the myth of Medusa with her constant and repetitive ancestral gestures. Her art emulates serpents...

Thin strands reach from every angle, pausing and posing in the air like hair underwater. A stuffed baby is tangled in the grip of spools of wool wrestling through organic pillars and poles. Thick black thread flows like spilled blood, exacerbating the deranged scenery, therefore making it all the more real. One could feel each and every stitch; feel what she felt as she was making each piece.

Her work, a special kind of genius, puts forth the leverage for the viewer to embrace human relationships for what they are and to establish a new set of ideals whereas beauty and failure exist in society. Marya creates work that is fleshy and hairy and she dares the viewer to call it something other than unadulterated beauty. Her work knows its worth and that beauty can never be taken away.

"Personal Living Space" serves to remind us all about the respect we owe to our bond with other humans. We have ignored each other's needs for entirely too long.

opening reception: June 8th 2005
dates: June 12th- November 5th 2005
location: Palazzo Pesaro Papafava, Venice, Italy
directions: Cannaregio 3764

For additional information please contact in New York: Lynn del Sol 917 826 5550 or Italy: Berengo Fine Arts Michela Rizzo by calling +39 041 5223186 or faxing +39 0415223186

The Image below is one of Marya Kazoun's glass projects at Berengo Fine Arts

Marya Kazoun  Self Portrait, 2003 Mirrored Glass Installation photo: F. Ferruzzi